Assault (1971/I)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

Sidney Hayers

Writers:

John Kruse (writer)
Kendal Young (novel)

Release Date:

19 May 1973 (USA)

Genre:

Mystery | Crime | Drama | Horror

Tagline:

Strikes Terror Into the Heart of Innocence!

Plot:

After one schoolgirl is raped while taking a short cut through the local woods, and another is murdered in the same woods a few days later...

Plot Keywords:

Psychologist | Doctor | Murder | Rapist | Rape

Cast

Suzy Kendall	...	Julie West
Frank Finlay	...	Det. Chief Supt. Velyan
Freddie Jones	...	Reporter
James Laurenson	...	Greg Lomax
Lesley-Anne Down	...	Tessa Hurst
Tony Beckley	...	Leslie Sanford
Anthony Ainley	...	Mr. Bartell
Dilys Hamlett	...	Mrs. Sanford
James Cosmo	...	Det. Sgt. Beale
Patrick Jordan	...	Sgt. Milton
Allan Cuthbertson	...	Coroner
Anabel Littledale	...	Susan Miller
Tom Chatto	...	Police Doctor
Kit Taylor	...	Doctor
Jan Butlin	...	Day Receptionist

Also Known As:

In the Devil's Garden (USA)
Satan's Playthings (USA)
The Creepers
Tower of Terror (USA) (TV title)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:16 | Australia:M (video rating) | Australia:MA (cut tv version) | Australia:R | USA:R

Company:

George H. Brown Productions

Goofs:

Continuity: When Tessa leaves school, she is wearing her knee socks. However, when she is attacked she is wearing nylons.

A (Very) British Giallo

Although any number of Italian gialli ("Nude Si Muore", "What Have You Done to Solange?", etc.) were set in Britain and/or were UK co-productions, this film is somewhat unique in that it seems to be a completely British giallo. We're definitely in giallo territory here: There's a vicious rapist-murderer on the loose at a girl's school. There are two witnesses to the murder--one who can't quite remember what she saw (a familiar plot-line in the Italian films)and a previous rape victim who is too traumatized to speak. The lead is Suzy Kendall, who two years earlier had starred in Dario Argento's seminal giallo "The Bird with Crystal Plumage." It's definitely a very British film, however. The cinematography is staid and workman-like compared to the more garish and stylistic Italian films. The plot is fairly linear and logical, at least until the end when the murderer-rapist goes to laughably ridiculous lengths to stop a psychiatrist from giving sodium pentathlon to the traumatized victim to help her recover her memory.

It's not surprising given the famed British aversion to violence (in movies that is)that most of the violence here takes place off-screen. Still it is pretty nasty violence, especially considering the rape angle and the age and gender of the victims. (It's interesting that these kinds of movies never take place at a MEN'S college or in an old age home). The sex and nudity is also pretty non-existent, but it doesn't exactly seem wholesome either the way they have cast sexy twenty year olds as fifteen year olds and dressed them in mini-skirts short enough to get any real schoolgirl expelled. The most lurid scene involves the headmistress's lecherous husband and a student librarian on a ladder. I don't know if it makes it more or less perverse that the "student" is played by Janet Lynn, a British sex star of the period (thus the obvious pseudonym)who had been featured the year before in Pete Walker's naked sex romp "Cool It, Carol". The only really recognizable star though, besides Suzy Kendall, is a young Leslie-Anne Down as the traumatized rape victim. (Despite what an earlier reviewer said, Jenny Agutter is NOT in this movie).

Still if you can get around the leering British hypocrisy, the relative lack of sex and violence, and the fairly low-wattage of the star power, this is actually a pretty entertaining little film, and, if nothing else, an interesting one.