Nothing but the Night (1973) Review

 

Nothing but the Night (1973)

Nothing but the Night follows Col. Bingham and his friend Ashley, as the try to solve the murders of trustees of the Van Traylen Orphanage, all seemingly connected by a little girl who has terrifying visions.

This movie was definitely odd, starting out as a thriller to solve the murders of the trustees, and slowly turning out to be much more sinister than that, with the answer being in front of us the whole time. It uses misdirection as it’s main way of throwing you off the scent and adding a lot of unnecessary elements to keep the mystery alive, some that worked, many that didn’t. It tried to explain much of what is happening through long, exposition dump dialogue sequences that are only successful half the time, with the rest just being indiscernible. In using red herrings to divert us from the real culprit(s), we focus on certain characters WAY too long, with certain scenes being unbelievable redundant and a waste of time, even for a sub-2 hour movie. Admittedly, it does a decent job of drawing you in, thanks only in part to it’s lead actors, who shine bright in an otherwise dull movie. The movie also did a great job of staying grounded in reality up until the end, but it’s when it went off the rails into absurdist territory that it actually got good, giving us supernatural stakes and an unbelievable ending that I would’ve never come close to expecting.

As I mentioned above, the film is carried by it’s two lead stars, Star Wars alums Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, with Lee bringing a cautious and outside of the box way of critical thinking, to Cushing’s calm and scientific minded Ashley. It was nice to seem them, after the countless movies they’ve done, actually team up and be friendly for once, as their dynamic is what drives the film along to keep it from screeching to a boring halt. Other solid performances by Georgia Brown and Gwyneth Strong give our leads interesting opposites and antagonists to play with in this murder mystery.

This is a fairly decent entry into the Brit-horror genre, using staples of the genre and time, to carry it into it’s redeeming, shocking twist in this precursor to The Wicker Man.

5.7/10