Symptoms (1974)

Symptoms: Directed by José Ramón Larraz. With Angela Pleasence, Peter Vaughan, Lorna Heilbron, Nancy Nevinson. A young woman is invited by her girlfriend, who lives in an English country mansion, to stay there with her. The estate, however, isn’t quite what it seems–and neither is the friend who issued the invitation.

“An odd woman takes her girlfriend to stay at her place in the country, but a former girlfriend has something to say about that …u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eSlow and creepy mystery. The atmosphere is set perfectly by photography and music, but especially through the overgrown lakeside estate from the early u0026#39;70s, when locations were cheap. Iu0026#39;m not sure this is a horror – it does dabble in the ghostly, but really itu0026#39;s all about psychosis – although the gore is effective: films from this era relished their stabbing scenes, and the crunchy-cabbage sound effects in this one got me every time.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe lead actress is excellent, and the performances all round are good, but the big drawback is in the character of the odd-job man: the performance is a little awkward, and the purpose of the character turns out mundane, missing the opportunity to make this a true horror, where things turn inside out and the past becomes cosmic truth. Ahem. In the end itu0026#39;s just a tale of bloody madness temporarily disturbing the surface of normality.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMusic sets the tone. Photography is mostly delicious, and the house and lake take on real character.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOverall: Nicely disturbing, but falls short.”