Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Fantastic!

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

What Pete Walker accomplish in this '70 horror -even exploitation- film is quite impressive. A story about a demented cannibalistic woman and the husband who is madly in love with her sounds a bit crazy on the start, but the way that this story develop itself makes you feel tense and uncomfortable since the very first second of the movie.Walker probe that you don't need a lot of gore, evisceration, profanity or even crude violence to made a good and compelling horror movie. Some can argue that the plot don't grow a lot itself and is only a mere tale about a sick family, but I believe that that was the hole point, because is a ride in how they related with everyone. The directing is crude, simple and effective, the characters are very well established and the actors we're overall putting a good work, but the couple of Sheila Keith and Rupert Davies take the cake for their incredible chemistry and how they grow in their personas more and more through the entire movie.The music, as not as bright at the rest of the movie, is good enough to help the feeling of tension, but suffers a bit with the poor editing of some parts. The effects are obviously low-budget, but effective and even helps the movie to be even more crude.I tell you, and I won't spoil even a little of this movie for you, but you will feel sick and even a little guilty after seeing this British flick. Close to be a masterpiece of the genre. A must for any horror, gore or thriller fan.

Despite displaying what would today be considered very mediocre special effects, Frightmare is a creepy British classic.Imagine you are a single father and you fall madly in love with a woman, who then becomes your wife. Only to find out that she is a serial killing cannibal who uses tarot readings to lure in unsuspecting victims. You love her so much, though, that when the sh*t hits the fan...you get yourself institutionalized in an asylum just to be closer to her...leaving your daughters as wards of the state.Fast forward 15 years later: your wife is deemed cured and fit for release (a credit to the ego of psychiatrists...toward which the film takes an oppositional slant). Together- even though your insanity was questioned from the beginning- you are sent back out into the world, to live freely.The release of such a couple, has led to an identity crisis for their daughters, who now find themselves leading dual realities. Jackie is left attempting to con her still cannibalistic mother into eating hog brain, so that she can prevent any other innocent people from being murdered. While subsequently trying to hide the very existence of their parents from her sister Debbie- who was born in the asylum and raised in a convent style orphanage by a group of nuns. However Debbie has some secrets of her own...It becomes evidently clear early on- after she instigates a bar fight, before killing and dismembering the target victim- that Debbie has, at the very least, inherited the murder gene from her violently disturbed mother.Her mother, on the other hand, is an incredibly manipulative psychopath who simply cannot stop murdering and eating people. And she has a particular taste for brain.She has gotten her entire family trapped within her world. They are all either trying to cover-up for her, or actively helping her kill.Too bad for the young and upcoming, local, psychiatrist- who thinks he's the wondermaker that can work out all their mental issues. As you might suspect, things don't go so well for him. Inevitably leading to the conclusion of the film.In my opinion, The Yates Family are, alongside the Texas Chainsaw Massacre crew and those backwoods hicks from Deliverance, among the creepiest horror families that have ever plagued the cinematic screen. While the special effects are quite budget- with a general lack of gore- the film more than makes up for this with it's tension and collection of creepy characters driven by dubious motives. I really enjoyed this disturbing classic. Recommended.6.5 out of 10

Frightmare is directed by Pete Walker who also co-writes the screenplay with David McGillivray. It stars Rupert Davies, Shelia Keith, Deborah Fairfax, Paul Greenwood and Kim Butcher. Music is by Stanley Myers and cinematography by Peter Jessop.Edmund and Dorothy Yates are freed after fifteen years in an asylum, committed for despicable crimes, but is Dorothy cured? And what of their daughters? Frightmare is what it is, a British exploitation horror made at a time when it was out to get the best rise out of the audience. As much as Pete Walker's fans don't want to believe it, there is no social comment being made, no hidden agenda or attempts to push the boundaries of British horror in visual or thematic achievements. Walker, a very likable and honest man, even says his films are not for deep cranial pondering, he couldn't believe his luck that he got to throw blood and guts about and got paid for it.Frightmare is a thinly plotted and written picture that serves only to bask in some shock and awe scenes. The ineptitude of the mental health authorities is given a cursory glance, but really the picture plods from one scene to the next waiting for Dorothy to get busy with her tool kit. It's there, with the wonderfully scary Keith doing her stuff, where Walker excels. Though in today's desensitised age it's more fun than frightening, while there's actually not as much gore on show as you would think. It's all very basic in truth, but Walker achieved his aims back then, and kudos to him for serving up a truly bleak finale. 5/10

"Frightmare" is definitely one of the better horror films of the 1970's. I'd say it ranks right up there with "The Exorcist" in terms of how effective it is for the time it came out. It remains effective too, though comes off a little campy in spots.It reminded me in some scenes of a Herschell Gordon Lewis flick, ridiculous and pretty gratuitous gore, people's eyes gouged out, people gored up with pitchforks...yea I liked this one. I was surprised at how much gore there was, I wasn't expecting it. I certainly haven't seen a British horror flick from the 70's with that much gore.The plot is simple: a married couple is released from a mental hospital after serving decades for cannibalism and murder. They have two daughters, but the older is only related to the man. Her stepmother and sister sort of exclude her in the end...it has to be seen to be believed, I thought it was really shocking and the kind of film you see that sits with you for days.Unexpected.8 out of 10, kids.