Schizo (1976 film)
Schizo | |
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Columbia-Warner | |
Release date |
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Running time | 109 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Schizo is a 1976 British psychological horror slasher film directed and produced by Pete Walker and starring Lynne Frederick, John Leyton and Stephanie Beacham.[1]
Plot
Samantha Gray, a famous
Samantha tells her psychiatrist friend, Leonard Hawthorne, that Haskin was her mother's lover until he brutally stabbed her to death during an argument. Now that Haskin has been released from prison, Samantha thinks that he is trying to kill her. That night, Leonard is found murdered in his car, his throat slashed.
Samantha's housekeeper, Mrs Wallace, takes Samantha to see her daughter Joy, a
Samantha confronts Haskin at Alan's factory. Haskin tells Samantha that he is not a murderer and was wrongfully convicted: Samantha has a
Some time later, Alan and Samantha depart for their honeymoon. Unknown to Alan, Samantha has packed a knife in her luggage.
Cast
- Lynne Frederick as Samantha Gray
- John Leyton as Alan Falconer
- Stephanie Beacham as Beth
- John Fraser as Leonard Hawthorne
- Jack Watson as William Haskin
- Queenie Watts as Mrs Wallace
- Trisha Mortimer as Joy
- Paul Alexander as Peter McAllister
- Robert Mill as maitre d'
- Diana King as Mrs Falconer
- Colin Jeavons as Commissioner
- Victor Winding as Sergeant
- Raymond Bowers as Manager
- Pearl Hackney as woman at seance
- Terry Duggan as editor
- Lindsay Campbell as Falconer
- Wendy Gilmore as Samantha's mother
- Primi Townsend as secretary
- Victoria Allum as young Samantha
- John McEnery as Stephens (uncredited)
Production
The film was shot on location in
Lynne Frederick had known director Pete Walker since she was 14 years old (her mother was a friend and co-worker of Walker). However, Schizo is the only film that they worked on together.[citation needed]
Frederick started work on the film just days after wrapping on Voyage of the Damned (1976). When Frederick was cast, Walker was under the impression that she still had her trademark long hair. Unbeknownst to him, Frederick had cut it short for her previous role in Voyage of the Damned.[citation needed]
Due to the film's low budget, many of Frederick's clothes came from her own personal wardrobe. Frederick had worn many of these outfits the previous year in A Long Return (1975).[citation needed]
Release
The release of Schizo (1976) was rushed to coincide with the anticipated success of Frederick’s highly acclaimed performance in Voyage of the Damned (1976). It was hoped that the success of that film would garner a following for Frederick and bring in extra earnings for this film..[citation needed]
The film received a release in the US on 7 December 1977.
Critical reception
In The Monthly Film Bulletin, Tom Milne wrote "Not one of the happier Walker-McGillivray collaborations, Schizo starts off on the wrong foot with a truly hackneyed come-on (an awed transatlantic voice solemnly explaining the joys of schizophrenia), and thereafter trudges wearily into a morass of evasions and red herrings as the plot twists and turns in a frenzied attempt to obscure the fact, obvious from the very start, that beleaguered heroine and bloodthirsty killer are one and the same. Deprived of any support from the script this time, Pete Walker's direction, all thump, scream and cut as shadows lurk and doorknobs turn – with each cliché heralded by a triumphant tremolo or bass boom from the score – reduces the whole thing to risible absurdity in which even the studiously nasty murders (Mrs. Wallace killed by a knitting-needle rammed right through her skull) are unconvincing. "[2]
Time Out wrote: "Walker and writer David McGillivray's most ambitious project to date attempts to shake off the low-budget horror/exploitation tag with a move into more up-market psychological suspense. If the formula is thread-worn – a trail of victimisation, sexual paranoia, and murder in the wake of the heroine's wedding - at least some effort is made to locate it (rich, middle-class London). But things collapse disastrously in the second half. Caught between sending itself up and taking itself seriously, the film ends closer to the silliness of Francis Durbridge than to the menace of Alfred Hitchcock."[3]
Legacy
Although the film was not a success during its initial release.[
References
- ^ "Schizo". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
- Monthly Film Bulletin. 43 (504): 256. 1976 – via ProQuest.
- ^ "Schizo | review, synopsis, book tickets, showtimes, movie release date | Time Out London". Timeout.com. Retrieved 2014-03-04.
- ^ "Lynne Frederick, The Legacy of a Scream Queen, 65th Birthday Tribute | Spooky Isles". www.spookyisles.com. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
External links
- Schizo at IMDb
- Schizo at ReelStreets