(1973)
Dir - José Ramón Larraz
Overall: MEH
Originally screened as Please Don't Go in the Bedroom, but more commonly known as Scream...and Die! or The House That Vanished in U.S. markets, this was the first entirely British production directed by José Ramón Larraz, (likewise being the first where he went under the anglicized name "Joseph Larraz"). A proto-slasher of sorts yet lacking in the more lurid style of Italian giallos that were still in their prime, it is mostly concerned with dark, slow, drawn-out scenes that inevitably get interrupted by some form of a Lewton buss. An incense sub-plot and plenty of boobs aside, the eerie pacing at least is not without its charm, but the script from sexploitation screenwriter Derk Ford has some logical shortcomings. A woman witnesses a murder, the culprit of which begins clearly stalking her, and her friends advise her to sit back and wait it out, calling her foolish for wanting to go to the police. While everything else from there goes for a tense atmosphere first and foremost, it is also then on flimsy footing story-wise, which regrettably undermines it.
(1976)
Dir - Pete Walker
Overall: MEH
By 1976, naughty horror filmmaker Pete Walker was on a roll and Schizo marks yet another slasher outing that walks that careful line of blood, boobs, and mild bad taste. While this is noticeably a comparatively less over the top offender of Walker's usual, aforementioned shtick, it does maintain yet another variation of his fundamental violence against youth theme as the killer here is a older gentleman targeting his former stepdaughter. Sadly, the more serious approach wields rather mundane results as the script, (authored by Walker's frequent collaborator David McGillivray), brings virtually nothing unique to the table and has a twist that comes off as a cockamamie groan. Many of the scenes are adequately suspenseful, but they are also very formulaic in the way that the killer toys with his primary victim and predictably does away with others. It is even less impressive that once again no one takes a woman seriously who claims multiple times that someone is stalking her. Instead, her husband, friends, and the cops all believe that she is most likely imagining everything, even though she has positively identified who her pursuer is. Is there a more aggravating cliche? Likely not.
(1978)
Dir - Richard Marquand
Overall: MEH
Flawed yet not without some weird, supernaturally pleasing ingredients at its disposal, The Legacy was the debut and only horror movie from future Return of the Jedi director Richard Marquand. Co-scripted by Hammer screenwriter and director Jimmy Sangster, it is one of the many adequately funded, occult-themed genre films from the decade and a typically mediocre one. For one, the musical score by Michael J. Lewis occasionally embellishes in dated and terrible romantic disco music and has an opening song sung by Kiki Dee which is equally appalling as well as positively mood killing. The dialog gets clumsy from time to time with Sam Elliot and Katharine Ross, (in the movie that the real life married couple met on), suffering the most from it. The script ultimately blows its chance to make for a satisfyingly creepy ending, but that said, the central mystery is sufficiently curious and finds room for some gruesome death sequences that break up the rest of its "people politely stuck in a house that they can't leave" monotony. There is also Roger Daltrey and a cat with two different colored eyes in it for whatever that is worth.
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