Twisted Nerve
Twisted Nerve
| 26 February 1969 (USA)
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Martin Durnley is a young man with an infantilizing mother, resentful stepfather and an institutionalized brother with Down's syndrome. To cope, he retreats into an alternate child personality he calls Georgie. After being caught during a theft attempt at a department store, he befriends a female customer who is sympathetic to him, but his friendship soon turns into obsession.

Reviews
Fairaher

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

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Sammy-Jo Cervantes

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

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Billy Ollie

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

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Francene Odetta

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

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ags123

The strength of this film lies in Bernard Herrmann's whistling theme music, a unique, haunting and, typical of Herrmann, innovative melody that gets under your skin. The rest of the movie may indeed get under your skin, but for all the wrong reasons. It's just not very logical or suspenseful. I find Hywel Bennett's portrayal of the troubled protagonist wildly inconsistent and never quite believable. Nor does it help that he's quick to reveal a not very attractive physique. Hayley Mills, on the other hand, looks great but there's nothing challenging about her portrayal of a sweet young naif. She's rather dull. Billie Whitelaw and Barry Foster have this film to thank for getting them cast in Hitchcock's "Frenzy," though it's difficult to ascertain what Hitchcock saw in them based on their uneven performances here. Not worth tracking down this odd film as it will ultimately disappoint expectations.

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mark.waltz

Hwyel Bennett is quite brilliant in thus psychological drama about a troubled 22 year old man with the mentality and emotions of a teenaged boy. Add sexual desire and strength to the seeming innocence of youth, and it is danger for sure. Today, there are several medical terms for it (arrested development being the most common), but it is something that puzzles the mist brilliant of minds.I have known people with this disorder, and the mental growth stops at the age of a traumatic event. Abandonment, sexual molestation, and in Bennett's case, the loss of his natural father. Coddled by his remarried mother and browbeaten by his stepfather, he takes the opportunity of being thrown out to disappear, start a new life and pursue the pretty librarian (Hayley Mills, all grown up) who rescued him from a shoplifting charge. By chance, he is taken in by her widowed mother (a terrific Billie Whitelaw) who finds his innocence both on need of mothering and sexually enticing.This goes into dramatic overload when Bennett's violent side cones out, topped by his attraction to Mills. Riviting drama of troubled youth locked in a growing body is tense and brilliantly acted. This is a sleeper of a film that gives a different twist on the "Psycho" theme, and one that really deserves to be rediscovered and studied.

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Matthew Luke Brady

This movie had one of the best whistle in any movie I've seen.The story is about psychosis, Hayley Mills plays Susan Harper, a young student who tries to help a rich, emotionally ill and sinister young man, Martin Durnley (Hywel Bennett). Martin is a schizophrenic who assumes the personality of a six-year-old boy when he is in his "nice" phase. Susan talks a store manager out of pressing charges against Martin after he steals a toy duck. Martin wants to take the toy to his mongoloid brother, who is in an institution. Martin's stepfather, Henry (Frank Finlay), enraged by his shoplifting, evicts Martin despite the pleas of his mother, Enid (Phyllis Calvert). Martin, again acting like a young child, is taken in by Susan's mother, Joan Harper (Billie Whitelaw), who runs a boarding house.Do you that scene from Kill Bill where Elle Driver is walking down the corridor in the hospital and she starts whistling that awesome but menacing whistle, yeah do you know that first came from? yep this movie and that's the only reason I checked it out because of that, after seeing the movie I can say that this a pretty damn good horror movie and the most overlooked horror movie I've seen.Hayley Mills as the main psychopath of the movie dose a brilliant and a menacing little creep that got under my skin, because Martin or George (The main character psychopath) acts like a man child as he acts like he hasn't grown up yet and everyone treats him like a child, but really his a pure psycho and that pretty much explains why he acts like a little kid just to act innocent and fool everyone. Now when I think about it it's kind of nerving that this guy acts like this and that just add to unsettling nature of are main killer and Hayley Mills did a outstanding performance playing this character.The director of the movie Roy Boulting which this is my first movie that he directed that I've seen and Roy Boulting did great behind the camera filming the unsettling and the uncomfortable scene where Martin was in and the director really set the scene very well. He made this movie look like if Alfred Hitchcock directed it. The rest of the cast did fine in they roles, Martin was a interesting psychopath and the ending to the movie was even more uncomfortable and I think that's what made this movie stand out and doesn't hold anything back and just goes for it.Now for problems with the movie: Some of the writing in the movie was a bit well how can I say it, oh yeah wooden and corny. Some of the other characters in the movie I didn't really care about to be honest, I only cared about Martin the killer because well he's so messed up that makes him more interesting.Overall Twisted Nerve is a good overlooked horror movie that at times felt like a Alfred Hitchcock film at times.

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bkoganbing

Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett who scored big in The Family Way, she as the eager bride and him as the groom with nervous performance problems, made several films after that together. But Twisted Nerve is about as different from The Family Way as you can get. Hayley Mills still had some box office clout via the Disney films she made. But it's Bennett here who has a meaty role as a narcissistic sociopath.He meets Hayley Mills when both are suspected of shoplifting in a London toy store. But Mills and Bennett both get out of it after he puts on a second personality, a man with the development of a seven year old. Mills feels sorry for him and Bennett makes a note of her address and makes sure to bump into her.He may act a seven year old as a ploy calling himself Georgie. But in is real life role as Martin, Bennett is getting an understandable case of the hots for Mills. She can't take him seriously though in his little boy persona. That's when Bennett's narcissism takes over and he goes full blown psychotic.Bennett dominates this film, he enters the room your eyes are on him even if he's not speaking. Beautiful as Hayley Mills was at the prime of her life, she can't keep your attention when Hywel is in the scene.The film fills you full of anticipation. You never know when Bennett is going to finally lose it, but when he does you are fearful of this man/child.Nothing like The Family Way, but still a good film.

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