SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

lazarillo This one of a number of movies that were popular in the 60's and 70's (i.e. "Cape Fear", "Kitten with a Whip", "Lady in a Cage", "Wait Until Dark", "Straw Dogs", "Death Game")where complacent middle-class people find their comfortable lifestyles (and often their very lives) threatened by lower-class cretins, who rather being after just the usual things (money, sex), almost seem to have been sent as divine messengers to punish them for their sins. In this particularly nasty example a married, middle-age business man is in his isolated luxury penthouse with his young mistress when the two are attacked by a trio of crazed and seemingly motiveless characters calling themselves "Tom", "Dick", and "Harry" (the latter is a woman brilliantly played by ex-Bond girl Martine Beswick). The criminals soon expose both the immoral lifestyle of the couple and the cracks in their shallow relationship of convenience.The movie is every bit as sleazy as the more notorious "Straw Dogs" (and it shows what you can get away with in Britain and America if you only adopt the proper moralistic tone). The two men take turns raping Kendall, but a la "Straw Dogs" her rape is portrayed more as a humiliation of her boyfriend than of her as she gets drunk and develops the most rapid case of Stockholm Syndrome in history and thus may be an at least somewhat willing participant.The movie was no doubt based on a stage play--it has a very limited set and excessive amount of dialogue--and the stageiness gets a little annoying at times. Still it is one of the more interesting films of director Pete Collinson ("Straight on Until Morning", "Fright") who was the three Pete's of British genre cinema (the other two being Pete Walker and Pete Sasdy). Oh yeah, and it has some very uncharacteristic (if pretty tame)nude scenes from Suzie Kendall. Not a bad to kill way an hour and a half overall.

Frederick Reeves I marveled at this film because it pulls off a quite complete double reverse in the traditional methodology of a Greek drama. There are some great soliloquies and the main characters carry on a bit like folks in a No Exit play by Sartre. Human nature is exposed with the ruthlessness of an artist that likes to see his characters bare to the bone with skin peeled back for added color. Metaphorically of course, not like the Passion of Christ where the main character ends up looking like hamburger. The Penthouse is psychological destruction in the form of Virgina Wolf. Complete and devastating but not in a cheap trash psycho thriller way. I totally related to this modern day "Greek Drama".

rwint Two thugs, armed with nothing more than a a very small knife, take over a couple's 'love nest' almost at will. They then proceed to 'terrorize' them which consists of nothing more than talking for the next ninety minutes. The only action comes, literally, when one of the thugs takes a sausage out of the refrigerator and eats it.There is a certain stylish quality mixed in with some 60's kitsch that,at the beginning, gives it a certain avant-garde quality. This though is soon killed by it's very pedestrian script. The thugs go from being child like to dumb and the couple is just plain boring. Why we should have any concern for these people is about as nebulous as to why any of this is even happening. The whole thing is stretched out so much that one is incredulous to believe that the director really thought any viewer would find this even remotely gripping or suspenseful.Flat and forgettable. The only distinction this has is to see just how boring and uninvolving a film purported to be a 'thriller' can be. It's hard to imagine that there could be anything worse.

pppatty This is the only movie I regret not having got up and walked out! Although it is some 30 years since I had the misfortune of seeing this film in the cinema, I have never forgotten what a thoroughly unpleasant experience it was -- with unlikeable characters and stupidly unbelievable circumstances. I can forgive all sorts of things in a film if there is at least one redeeming quality, but you can look in vain for it here. I am amazed that its rating is as high as it is since I would have given it a minus rating were this possible.