george.schmidt A REFLECTION OF FEAR (1973) ** Robert Shaw, Sally Kellerman, Mary Ure, Sondra Locke, Signe Hasso, Mitchell Ryan, Gordon Devol. Haunting yet problematic thriller based on Stanton Forbes' novel "Go To Thy Deathbed" about a young woman (Locke, who gives a tenderly troubled performance) who finds herself reuniting with her long-estranged father (Shaw wholeheartedly stalwart) while her eerie 'chats' with her 'friends' (read: dolls!) proves to have some truth to the eerie goings on including murder and incestuous underpinnings. While filmmaker William A. Fraker lays down the odd atmosphere with glossy cinematography by ace Laszlo Kovacs and Fred Myrow's pinpricking score to elicit some chills the final act feels compromised and frankly a cheat for what has been implied thru out in the adaptation by Edward Hume and Lewis John Carlino.

sudburyiii I am going to have to try and balance out all these reviews that give this film more than a few stars. Although the other reviewers probably do like this film for various reasons, I found myself bored with it in the first 10 minutes. This is one of those typical 1970's thrillers which spend an hour and a half dragging through a story that could be told in a 10 minute short film. I immediately put this film in the "One Time Watch" category.I can't reveal too much of the film without giving away the plot, but much of the film involves an over bearing mother and her daughter (played by Sondra Locke) which, obviously, the crazy is leaking out. The director tried to intersperse mysterious happenings throughout the film which were blamed on local townsfolk, however, it was quite obvious who was responsible. (Once again I don't want to say too much for those that wish to watch this film.) The only "shocker," and I use that term loosely, was at the ending which I had pretty much guessed except for a minor detail.You can find a crisp clean copy of the transfer with very few flaws for a film from the 70's. There is a haze over part of the film, but that is the director's vision and not the film quality itself. The editing was a little choppy and I believe that a few more details for some of the scenes would have helped the flow of the story.Bottom line, for me this film was one of those films you would watch (back when we only had 12 channels) only because absolutely nothing else was on at the time. Don't get me wrong, I love the movies of the 70's, but this one made me tired.

Doppelganger76 For a really minor film from the 70's, for some reason this one sticks with me - even this long after I saw it at a horror festival in the late 80's. Why? Maybe it's the idea that we all have secret urges and thoughts that could manifest themselves in the world, if we give them a vehicle.Sondra Locke does a great job of being a too-mousy-for-reality girl who has a BIG secret, of which I'm not sure even SHE'S aware.Cool ending, as well, with enough still remaining from the cuts for the viewer to get the idea.Catch this one, if you can. You won't be sorry.

robertconnor A beautiful but strange teenage girl is kept isolated by her mother and grandmother. Her long absent father arrives with a new fiancé in tow, and asks for a divorce. It's not long before all sorts of slightly perverted and typically violent seventies shenanigans kick off! One of the oddest early seventies psycho-thrillers... as Marguerite, Locke is all bug eyes, long hair and mini-dresses as the disturbed teenager, wafting around, talking to a seemingly imagined friend and enduring alarming mood swings. Hasso and Ure (in her last film) are given rather thankless roles as her sinister guardians (and given the apparently Canadian setting - references to Charlottetown, Georgetown - there's no particular explanation for Marguerite having a Swedish grandmother and an Anglo-American mother... and why is the gardener British?). Robert Shaw was a fine actor (and he was married to Ure at the time), but here seems to sleepwalk throughout the movie, despite the slightly incestuous nature of his character, and Kellerman was a curious and strange choice for the 'straight' role of Anne, especially if you consider her other more wacky roles of this period (M*A*S*H, SLITHER, LAST OF THE RED HOT LOVERS and BREWSTER McCLOUD).In keeping with a movie-making trend of the period, much is made of Locke's pubescent sexuality (see also BABY LOVE, TWINKY, Sally Tomsett's character in STRAW DOGS), and even with the apparent editing, the murder of at least one character has a grainy, improvised and rather nasty look to it. Ultimately it doesn't really work, but it's still a fascinating and spooky failure with a striking cast and captivating central performance, all of which leaves it lingering long after the final credits fade.