Nothing But The Night Movie Review 363

Nothing But The Night is a 1973 horror movie directed by Peter Sasdy and starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Diana Dors and Gwyenth Strong.

This film was one that I had never heard of before so I was happy to watch it. I liked the cast and the premise seemed interesting. The movie revolves around trustees of the Van Traylen fund which helps people. The trustees are being killed off in strange 'accidents'. A bus with 30 children on it and more trustees crashes. There is one survivor- a young girl called Mary Valley(Strong). She is in hospital and Dr. Haynes(Keith Barron) wants to talk to her about what happened. He is a psychiatrist and he thinks that Mary might hold the key to discovering who is committing these crimes. Mary's mother is a nasty woman called Anna Harb(Diana Dors) and she wants her daughter home with her. She goes to the hospital to get her back, but Mary is scared of her. Anna goes to a reporter called Joan Foster(Georgia Brown) to help her but it doesn't work.

Dr. Haynes has a supervisor called Mark Ashley(Cushing) and he is helping the doctor with the case. He is also helping Colonel Bingham (Lee) , a police officer who is investigating all of the accidents. When Haynes is murdered in the hospital, there is suspicion that it might be Anna Harb who did it.Mary wants to go back to the orphanage where she lives on an island. Miss Foster listens to the tapes that Dr. Haynes made of his sessions with Mary while she was under hypnosis. She says strange things about a fire. Anna goes to the island to get her daughter back.The police are there to stop her. They are patrolling the orphanage, but they are not allowed inside the grounds by the staff.Miss Foster goes to the island for some answers too.

Two men discover one of the orphanage kids dead in the woods. The boy was stabbed and they think that it is like a ritual murder. Miss Foster thinks that Mary might be psychic.Colonel and Mark investigate the orphanage and discover that there are two prominent brain surgeons working there. Why would they be there? Everything gets complicated from here and it is discovered that Mary is not a young girl. She has had another personality transplanted into her brain by the surgeons. She is actually another woman and that is why Mary was having nightmares about a fire. The Colonel goes to a bonfire that the kids are having and he sees Anna roasting on the fire. Mary is the evil leader and the kids do what she says. She tells them to kill him. Mary killed her mother and everyone else too. The staff are all in on it too. Miss Foster and Mark arrive just in time to save the Colonel. Mary gets burned by the fire and she falls from a cliff. The other children follow her.

This was an interesting movie. I liked the cast and I liked the story, especially the ending. It was entertaining and it was fun. I like 1970's horror movies and this was one that had slipped through my net. It is worth a watch. I will give it a 6/10.