BLIND TERROR
UK, 1971, 89 Minutes, Colour.
Mia Farrow, Robin Bailey, Dorothy Alison, Diane Grayson.
Directed by Richard Fleischer.
Blind Terror is a good little thriller which makes a first-rate support to a double feature. The story line can easily be guessed at, but this does not detract from the scary treatment of a fairly obvious plot. Blind Mia Farrow is terrorised by a maniac (amongst others) after he has murdered her relatives. It might occur to you early in the film that too much is being made of the romantic autumn tints of the English countryside, but by the end Mia has had her fill of terror, the audience has been satisfyingly frightened, and all loose ends are properly tied together.
1. Was this a successful fear-film? What happens when audiences become involved in such a film? What is the value of an audience being scared like this? What is necessary to create such an effect?
2. How well did this film use colour? The sumptuous house, the style of living, the horse riding and the autumnal countryside? The fact that we could see this and Sarah could not? How did it contribute to atmosphere for the scares?
3. The function of the music: the heavy tones, the soft music, the music of sentiment?
4. The appropriate title - and its literal portrayal? Audience sympathy for Sarah - as a heroine, her blindness, her pluck, her independence, her relationship with the family and their helping (our helping with them?), her love for Steve? The importance of the riding sequences? Her love for the horses and her achievement in riding again (how well were these scenes used for preparation for the later ride?) The growing fear, the terror, her being terrorised in the house? The strength of her escape and ride? The gypsy, the battering to get out of the hole, the bath sequence and the appearance of drowning? How exhausting was this experience of sharing Sarah's terror (how satisfying?)
5. Comment on the film's successful build-up - our liking the family, confrontation with the villain and the mud splash, the car scratch and the response to this? The brutality of the deaths and the way that these were filmed? Sarah alone in the house with the corpses? Her gradual discovery and the build-up of terror, the irony that we could see more than she knew?
6. Was the villain well explored or just portrayed - the boots, the Nazi overtones, the sex films, the sadism in the magazines and television? His behaviour in the bar? His scratching the car? Was the film fair in not showing us the villain? The sense of menace with the possibility of whoever the villain might be?
7. How was the mood changed with the riding and the cross-cutting to the dead bodies? Steve's arrival in the house and not knowing the deaths had occurred?
8. The variety of suspects? The suspicions of Barker and yet his death?
9. The effectiveness of the flight of the horse, the fall, the wandering, the tension?
10. The irony of the gypsies and their initial appearance, the imprisonment by the gypsy?
11. The irony of leaving the murderer to guard Sarah?
12. The fright of the bath sequence and the subjective sequence of drowning?
13. Was the abrupt ending satisfactory for this film?
14. How much did the involvement of the audience depend on Sarah and the ordinary and extraordinary experiences she had? How well does this stand in the status of 'fright films'?
