IS THERE ANYBODY THERE?
Australia, 1976, 74 minutes, Colour.
George Lazenby, Wendy Hughes, Tina Grenville, Charles Tingwell.
Directed by Peter Maxwell.
Is There Anybody There? is a very enjoyable thriller telemovie. It is a thriller with a twist - but its main ingredient is terror for women trapped by attackers in a flat. It pulls many stops out and uses a lot of the conventional terror material. At that level, the film works very well and also with the frightening culmination. However, the finale is less subtly portrayed even though there is a satisfying twist. Direction is by Peter Maxwell, a television director of such telemovies as Polly Me Love and of the Queensland Film Corporation's comedy Touch And Go. There is a very good cast but Wendy Hughes as the terrified Marianne is excellent.
1. Audience expectations of a telemovie thriller? Appeal, atmosphere, suspense, mystery? How satisfyingly portrayed in this film?
2. The use of Sydney locations, the Australian atmosphere, the city and the country? The colour photography?
3. How plausible was the plot? How plausible the suspense and the horror? The acting carrying the plot? The score?
4. Audience response to the twists in the plot - appearances, reality, judgments?
5. The initial focus on Kate - her leaving the asylum, her being betrayed by John and Marianne, her being seen as a victim? Audiences waiting to be told about the affair? Her reaction on being at home? The socialising with Marianne and her husband, the trip to the airport? The suspicious young man and woman? John leaving her in the flat? Marianne arriving? The bonds between the two women and the ironies known by the audience? Marianne wanting to tell the truth? The build-up to the security in the block of flats, the women being locked in? The build-up of the suspense? Kate and her sedation? Her seeming to be the victim, her fears? The intrusion? The change and her taking control, revenge? Her reaction to the deaths especially of John? Marianne going to the asylum? Her meeting with the young man and the plan about the money, her getting it from the bank? Audience knowing that the young man had killed the woman? The end and her future? A brief portrait of a betrayed and vengeful woman?
6. John and Marianne - their liaison and the way this was portrayed, the nature of the betrayal, the meal together, the tensions? The party, the airport sequence? John and his suspicious behaviour? Marianne seeing this? John going away and the business background - his secretary? His return and the irony of his being killed by Marianne?
7. The film's focus on Marianne - an attractive woman, her relationship with her husband and seeing him off, the affair with John, the drive and her being hurt? The meal? Her attitudes and her wanting to tell the truth? Friendship with Kate? The build-up of the isolation, her growing terror, the manoeuvres, the telephone, the lift? Her feeling that she was the wrong victim, no escape? Mounting suspense and terror? Her breakdown and being left with the incriminating evidence? Audience sympathy for her as victim?
8. The young man and woman and their meetings, their activities and terrorising Marianne, the murder of the young woman, the young man and his plans for Kate?
9. The people from the asylum - at the beginning. their support of Kate, the lift driver, the caretaker, the seeming deaths, the manoeuvres in the block of flats? How plausible?
10. The horror atmosphere for the romantic triangle? The psychological terror, poetic justice, punishment - and Marianne's deserving of it or not? Issues of fidelity and infidelity, hurt, justice?
