Terror (1978 film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Terror is a 1978 British independent supernatural horror film written by David McGillivray and directed by Norman J. Warren. It stars John Nolan and Carolyn Courage as two cousins who fall victim to a curse that a witch placed on their ancestors.
Conceived as a "fun horror film" with a simple premise, Terror was shot in various locations around London and Surrey. Although it was a box office success in the United Kingdom, it has drawn a mixed critical response for its storytelling and visual style, both of which were inspired by the Italian giallo horror film Suspiria (1977). Warren's plans for a sequel remain unrealised.
Plot
Three hundred years ago, the witch Mad Dolly is captured on the orders of Lord Garrick. She is about to be burned at the stake when she invokes the Devil, causing one of her executioners to catch fire. Garrick rushes back to his house, where a disembodied arm bursts through a wall and strangles him. Lady Garrick is confronted by a sword-wielding Mad Dolly, who beheads her and curses the family's descendants.
Credits roll, revealing that these scenes form the ending of a horror film directed by James Garrick – the last of the Garrick line with his cousin Ann. James is hosting a preview screening for Ann, an aspiring actress, and their friends at the largely unchanged Garrick house, which he now owns. He believes his film to be based on true events and has also inherited Mad Dolly's sword.
Gary, a mesmerist, hypnotises Ann as a party trick. In her trance, Ann picks up the sword and swings it at James, wounding him slightly. After being overpowered by the other guests, she comes to her senses and leaves the house. When James's friend Carol departs she is stabbed to death in the surrounding woods by an unseen assailant. Ann returns to her hostel in London with bloodstained hands, observed by her roommate Suzy.
Other murders and strange deaths follow. At the strip club where Ann and her friends work as waitresses, a patron is ejected by the bouncer after groping Ann; on returning home, he is thrown onto a row of spiked railings and dismembered. At James's film studio, an overhead lamp falls to the floor and crushes Les, a short-tempered director trying to shoot a sex film called Bathtime with Brenda. Viv – the title character, and one of Ann's friends – is stabbed to death at the hostel. Ann visits James's assistant Philip at the studio and tells him that she has no memory of her attack on James or how she got home on the night that Carol was murdered. After she leaves, Philip is attacked by flying props and equipment and decapitated by a falling sheet of glass.
Ann flees the hostel when she finds Suzy being questioned by police about her and Viv. An officer pursues her but is repeatedly run over and crushed by his car, which is being driven by a supernatural force. While making her way to the Garrick house, Ann is caught in unusually strong winds and takes refuge in a parked car, but is forced to jump out when the vehicle inexplicably rises into the air. Reaching the house, she experiences bizarre visions and sees various objects moving of their own accord. She is then startled by the sudden arrival of an unseen figure and strikes him down with an axe, only then to discover that she has killed James. The spirit of Mad Dolly re-appears, cackling, as her sword flies across the room and fatally impales Ann against a wall.
Cast
- John Nolan as James Garrick
- Carolyn Courage as Ann Garrick
- James Aubrey as Philip
- Sarah Keller as Suzy
- Tricia Walsh as Viv
- Glynis Barber as Carol Tucker
- Michael Craze as Gary
- Rosie Collins as Diane
- Chuck Julian as Club Patron
- Elaine Ives-Cameron as Dolores Hamilton
- Patti Love as Mad Dolly
