Films That Witness Madness

review

FRIGHTMARE

FRIGHTMARE, the most unfortunately titled shocker from British director Pete Walker, is commonly referred to as an across-the-pond variation on THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Aside from the shared element of cannibalistic families, nothing could be further from the truth. While Hooper's film is a typical - though great - exercise in terror, Walker's film is much more subtle and, ultimately, a much more terrifying film than CHAINSAW. The Sawyer family of CHAINSAW is essentially a geek show, comprised of weird, physically deformed and utterly batshit rednecks. The Yates family of FRIGHTMARE is perfectly ordinary in appearance. They are simply - though in the most extreme way possible - dysfunctional.

FRIGHTMARE tells the tale of the Yates family. Dorothy and Edmund are living in an isolated farmhouse after being released from a mental institution, where they served nearly two decades after being found guilty of murder and cannibalism. They have two daughters. Jackie, Edmund's daughter from a previous marriage, is a successful young woman caring for her step-sister, Debbie, a young, rebellious fifteen year old. Jackie is determined to shield her little sister from the history of their family, going so far as to tell her that their parents are dead, but is worried that Debbie is beginning to show the tell-tale signs of her mother's illness.

The characters possess all the faults of a typical After School Special family. Though Dorothy Yates is a cannibal, she resembles, in her behavior, a common drug addict or mentally ill individual. Supposedly cured of her condition, she has begun a relapse of epic purportions, killing - and feeding - in secret. Her long-suffering martyr of a husband, Edmund, desperately wants to help the wife whom he loves but cannot bring himself to do so. After all, that would mean a return trip to the mental institution and their painful separation - it is later revealed that Edmund did not partake in the red meat dinners, pleading guilty only to remain by his wife's side in the institution. Their two daughters, Jackie and Debbie, have been poisoned by their family history. Jackie has seemingly taken the high road, having long since developed an identity apart from her family, but is not willing to break the family ties completely. Debbie, Dorothy's biological daughter, is more permanently damaged, her rebellious nature owing more to genetics than simple displeasure at the course her life has taken.

Without the elements of cannibalism, this would be a routine family drama about how a mother's illness poisoned and eroded a family from within. Dorothy's reaction to Jackie's inquiries about migraines and whether or not she has "started again" is typical of the drug addict. Her reaction is a mix of fury over being questioned and fear of being found out - watching Sheila Keith work her way through every possible defense mechanism is truly moving in a weird kind of way. Her husband's reaction is quite different. Though he knows his wife is relapsing, his reaction is to coddle her, to passively enable her to keep doing what she is doing. This is a cycle of behavior that causes so many families to collapse. It's not long before the fault lines turn to fissures and things really start falling apart. Before long, Debbie is being sought for murder, Jackie's psychologist love interest finds himself trapped in the family home, and Jackie herself is being targeted for annihilation by her own family.

Walker's film is most certainly depressing but not because of the violence - though it is plentiful - or the ending - which is definitely an unhappy one. It is because Walker does not provide any hope for anyone in the film. These are the cycles of behavior that can - and usually will - destroy the strongest institution in the history of society: the family.

In the 1970s, no British filmmaker was as anti-establishment as Pete Walker. Whether it'd be railing against the justice system in his Sadean epic HOUSE OF WHIPCORD or against the Church in THE CONFESSIONAL (AKA HOUSE OF MORTAL SIN), Walker's critiques did not take prisoners. FRIGHTMARE - much like Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE - has its eye set on the failings of both the society which creates monsters and the Mental Health Institution's inability to deal with them. Though not without his own failings and psychological faults, it's Edmund's pained words, "they said she was well again...", that perfectly sums up FRIGHTMARE. With that one line, we see everything. A family destroyed then promised better days, the hope of a happy existence wiped out by an unbreakable pathology, the tragedy of love poisoned by illness. Walker's film might be unbearably intense at times but it wholly heartbreaking throughout. The ending of FRIGHTMARE, which I will not spoil here, is uncommonly complex, able to cause as many tears and it does screams.

FRIGHTMARE is one of the greatest of all horror films, British or otherwise.

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