The Fiend (1972)

Director:

Robert Hartford-Davis

Writer:

Brian Comport (screenplay)

Release Date:

May 1972 (UK)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

It's a Sickness of the Soul!

Plot:

Led by a sinister minister, a controlling religious sect called the Brethren has taken control of widow Birdy Wemys...

Plot Keywords:

Murder | Nude Woman Murdered | Drowning | Sexual Repression | Strangulation

Cast

Ann Todd	...	Birdy Wemys
Patrick Magee	...	Minister
Tony Beckley	...	Kenny Wemys
Madeleine Hinde	...	Brigitte Lynch
Suzanna Leigh	...	Paddy Lynch
Percy Herbert	...	Commissionaire
David Lodge	...	C.I.D. Inspector
Ronald Allen	...	Paul
Maxine Barrie	...	Singer
Jeannette Wild	...	Prostitute
Diana Chappell	...	Poolside girl
Susanna East	...	Teenage girl
Hani Borelle	...	Riverside girl
Ian Kiddy	...	Baptised boy
Dee Shenderey	...	Congregation member (as Dee Shenderry)

Also Known As:

Beware My Brethren (USA)
Beware of the Brethren (USA) (promotional title)

Runtime:

98 min | UK:87 min (cut version)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:18 (re-rating) | Argentina:X (original rating) | USA:R | UK:X | Norway:(Banned) (1973-2003) (cinema release)

Filming Locations:

Twickenham Film Studios, St Margarets, Twickenham, Middlesex, England, UK

Company:

World Arts Media

Goofs:

Continuity: At the beginning of the movie when the young boy is baptized, the boy is placed inside the baptismal pool. However during one shot of the congregation shouting, he is shown completely dry, back on his pew and seconds again later he is sat in the baptismal pool.

Soundtrack:

We are One

Boring and frightening

This movie is boring because the story proceeds so painfully slowly, the director presumably trying (though failing) to induce a slow crescendo of menace. It is frightening not because of the few brief glimpses of violent crime or its result, but because we know that all too many simple minded (or just plain stupid) people in the real world are capable of falling into the clutches of the sort of nasty, egotistical, sadistic bully, totally self-absorbed in his delusion of moral rectitude and continually playing the puritanical guilt card with his half-witted followrs, that is the Minister played so effectively here by Patrick Magee; and that there are all too many instances (though, thankfully, several orders of magnitude fewer than the numbers of the stupid and simple minded) of children growing up in the warped, hyper-pious but actually vicious atmosphere created in families and communities where such ministers of so-called religion and their equally nasty followers rule the roost, who grow up so mentally disturbed that they eventually do terrible things.

However, here the point is made so slowly that it takes much patience to sit through it; I imagine that it made no major moral impact on society when it appeared and that it has has been all but forgotten in the 36 years since. Given how much has come to light during those 36 years of the evils I refer to, one could perhaps claim that the film was in some small way prescient like Cassandra; however there were enough signs before, just not the instant media coverage thereof that there would be in the 21st century. All too many people follow religions with all too much blind zeal nowadays as before, and probably as always since the dawn of civilization. Unfortunately this movie will not be seen by enough people to influence that doom-laden trend. The sort of people about which this movie warns us are probably just the sort of people who believe that to watch movies at all is immoral!