aka “The Savage Curse”
“Thriller”, season 2, episode 3
For some general remarks about the British TV show “Thriller” and its stylistic setup, please take a look at my first write-up of an episode.
American Robert Stone (George Chakiris) supposedly comes to one of those small English villages for a bit of rest and relaxation and a bit of photographing. He’s rather good at becoming friendly with the people living in the village too, quickly and effectively becoming a part of the local pub culture. But then, in truth he isn’t a tourist, but is working in the investigative business, so he is supposed to be good at these things. At the moment, Robert is on a rather personal mission, looking for his brother who was last seen in this charming little hamlet before he mysteriously vanished.
Robert is quickly drawn to the mysteries of the local manor house (always a good place to look for the creepy stuff when you’re in the UK). As his brother before him, he is very quickly smitten with Dominie Lanceford (Jenny Agutter), who is rich, utterly charming in a gothic romance heroine way, and seems just a little bit eccentric. Her uncle Jonathan (Anton Diffring), on the other hand, while perfectly polite, even friendly, is clearly crazy as the bird of your choice, apparently spending most of his day exhorting the virtues of Edgar Allan Poe to whoever wanders near him. Given the Poe connection, I’m sure there’s nothing problematic at all going to happen at a masked ball, and taking up the offer of some amontillado is certainly not dangerous at all.
But then, one of the charms of this particular episode of thriller is that Robert is completely clueless about Poe’s work – he clearly hasn’t even seen the Corman movies – and rightfully seen as a barbarian not knowing some of the best parts of his own culture by Jonathan. Therefore he is a perfectly valid target for Poe-style shenanigans, as well as the sort of main character whose denseness really makes a Poe reader groan. Detective or not, Robert’s a bit of an idiot, not just for repeating – doppelganger-like, as Poe would approve of – his brother’s doomed love affair but also for not taking a look at Poe’s work even though he quickly starts to think that something is very wrong with the Lancefords.
Despite of its typically low budget, the episode/film, as directed by John Sichel does make quite a bit of the Poe connection, putting effort if not money into the most excellent masked ball as well as the expected premature burial. This is also one of the Thriller entries that spends quite a bit of time in outside locations in its first acts, and so can work in some rather good suspense sequences on actual film stock.
This one’s really rather lovely, with fine early work by Agutter, a cracking gothic villain turn by Diffring, and a plot that clearly enjoys playing with Poe and gothic tropes.
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