Dark Places Movie Review 237

  

Dark Places is a 1973 British horror/thriller directed by Don Sharp who made lots of Hammer movies such as The Kiss of the Vampire and  he also made Psychomania which is a little known horror movie that you should get your hands on if you can! Dark Places stars Joan Collins, Christopher Lee and Robert Hardy.

Edward Foster(Hardy) is talking to a patient called Marr and he leaves his house to Edward. He tells him that there is money buried inside the walls of the house. He dies soon after. Edward goes to Marrs Grove to find the house and when he does, he is going to live there and find the money. A local warns him about the house being evil which he dismisses. Outside, he falls through a wooden bridge and hurts his leg. A neighbour who is a doctor helps him. The doctor is called Ian Mandeville(Lee). He befriends Edward and tells him that the house is supposed to be haunted. Until the house is ready to live in, Edward is staying with Marrs solicitor, Mr. Prescott(Herbert Lom). That night, Edward is looking out at the large house when he sees a light come on. He tells Prescott but he thinks that is just his imagination.

The next day, Edward goes to the house to try and sort things out.He meets a woman called Sarah Mandeville(Collins) who just happens to be the sister of Ian. She offers her help to clean the house. We discover that Ian and Sarah know about the money in the house and they want to scare Edward out of there so they can find the cash. Prescott tells Edward that the previous owner of the house was called Andrew Marr and that he was having an affair with his nanny and he murdered his wife and children. Edward looks for the money. He can't find it yet. He begins a sexual relationship with Sarah. Edward has flashbacks where he sees Andrew Marr and he sees what happened in the house. He comes upon a key and it leads to the money at last.

Edward knows where the money is and he doesn't want anyone to know about it. He has a pick axe and he is preparing to break through the wall when Sarah comes upon him. He kills her. Ian comes looking for her and he gets killed too. Prescott comes to the house and sees the carnage and calls the police. It turns out that Edward was an inmate of the mental asylum and that he was mad.Has the house made him go insane again? He is carted out by the police and the money is found along with the bodies of Marrs wife and children. This was an entertaining movie. There is a lot to like about this and I would recommend it. It was a surprise as I had never heard of it and when I came upon it, I didn't have much hope for it, but it is actually a good tale with some very good actors. Watch it if you can. It is worth seeing. It gets a 6/10.