STRANGER WITHIN

US, 1974, 96 minutes, Colour.
Barbara Eden, George Grizzard, Nehemiah Persoff, Joyce Van Patten.
Directed by Lee Philips.

Stranger Within is another unusual contemporary horror story by prolific writer and film producer Richard Matheson. He wrote several of the Corman-Poe? adaptations of the '60s. other films include the Omega man and Duel. This film about a strange pregnancy was at the beginning of a cycle about strange pregnancies - It's Alive, Demon Seed... Comedienne Barbara Eden is quite good in the central role. The film has a slow cumulative effect and the ending works into science fiction - an anticipation in some ways of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

1. An enjoyable contemporary thriller, science fiction, suggestion of occult? The appeal of the '70s? Speculation about its plausibility?

2. Its impact as a telemovie, home audience and suspense, commercial breaks etc.? The stars? The screenplay and the introduction of the ordinary and hints of the extraordinary and the gradual cumulative effect?

3. Anne and David as a happily married couple, eleven years, David and his work and background, Anne and her art, their love, their affluent way of life, fidelity? The pregnancy and the repercussions?

4. David and his reaction, the vasectomy and the checks with the doctors, his suspicions of Anne, his anxiety, his inability to react well to her tantrums? The discussions with the doctor? The hopes from the hypnotism and its failure? His loving Anne but his inability to cope well?

5. Anne and her ordinary behaviour, the fact of the pregnancy? The gradual changes. her walking in the hills. her inability to go to the hospital because of illness and her sudden healing, the strange meals, the gulping of the coffee? Her snapping at David? The visits to the doctor. to the hypnotist? The psychological reaction to her situation? The further erratic behaviour and the building up to the birth of the child?

6. Audience puzzle about the possibility of the pregnancy? Believing Anne? Clues: the focus on the skies, the time leaps in the pregnancy?

7. The hopes from the hypnotism - the hypnotist and his friendship, advice to David? Phyllis and her friendship with Anne. her trying to help? Their anxiety especially in the latter part of the film?

8. The doctor and his puzzle, the tests, Anne's hospitalisation and sudden cure and serenity? His fears about the giving birth?

9. Anne and her learning, acquiring the knowledge in the libraries, touching everything to absorb it?

10. The heightened effect with the expectation of the birth and puzzle about the explanation?

11. The final hypnosis and the strangeness of the truth? The possibility of alien impregnation? Life in outer space, influence on people on Earth?

12. The birth, Anne's satisfaction,' the strange precision of so many mothers giving birth to alien babies? Their moving together and disappearing?

13. The science fiction background - life in space, the influence of aliens, contact, the production of strange children - for world takeover, for peaceful purposes, mystery? A satisfying short melodrama and excursion into science fiction backgrounds - and a touch of horror?