This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Instant Favorite.

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

I watched this movie and had no feelings. There is nothing special. It is not really funny. It is not really scary. It is too clean and simple. At the end of the movie I had the feeling that I wasted my time. There was nothing really entertaining - not even the black cat at the end that survived the killer.

Nasty, gripping, home invasion flick, directed by Peter Collinson who was always able to tell a tight, no nonsense tale. Known, I suppose for The Italian Job, although I prefer his, Straight On Till Morning, he had a background in TV and broke out with this film. Its a bit stylised with Pinteresque dialogue that seems to get in the way of the action at first. Gradually though these oafish clowns become far too sinister to dismiss and this really doesn't let up till the end, which isn't the end because we still have Martine Beswick to look forward to. Suzy Kendall had a mixed career, including several giallo, notably Bird With the Crystal Plumage and was apparently a 'guest screamer' in the recent, Berberian Sound Studio. Here she is majestic. It cannot have been an easy role but she does everything right as she veers from fear to seduction and rape aftermath. She looks fantastic throughout but even she is outshone when Beswick finally appears. An interesting actress, always referred to as 'the Bond girl' for her roles in From Russia With Love and Thunderball but I always think of her for Dr, Jekyll & Sister Hyde, Prehistoric Women and A Bullet For The General. Always good and in The Penthouse, she is at her very best. Not a pleasant watch and nobody comes out of this well but one of a kind and two great female performances.

I marveled at this film because it pulls off a quite complete double reverse in the traditional methodology of a Greek drama. There are some great soliloquies and the main characters carry on a bit like folks in a No Exit play by Sartre. Human nature is exposed with the ruthlessness of an artist that likes to see his characters bare to the bone with skin peeled back for added color. Metaphorically of course, not like the Passion of Christ where the main character ends up looking like hamburger. The Penthouse is psychological destruction in the form of Virgina Wolf. Complete and devastating but not in a cheap trash psycho thriller way. I totally related to this modern day "Greek Drama".

This is a superb and prescient little thriller by Peter Collinson that predates such films as FUNNY GAMES and other "extreme cinema" projects, and is much better, and much more restrained, in every way. I'm amazed that the film hasn't gotten better distribution, and that it seems to have slipped between the cracks of cinema history. A great film; see it if you can.