10 Rillington Place (1971)

Chilling movie to watch because its based on real events, but the acting is superb. I watched the latest one with Tim Roth and as far as I'm concerned they are both 10/10. Watch them both you won't be disappointed.

That this is such a perfect work created from such a dark and dirty tale is a tribute to all involved. The tight, near claustrophobic direction from Fletcher ensures we can almost smell the dour details and surroundings of this desperate dwelling in the Notting Hill area of London at the end of the 40s. The war is over but the ruined buildings and their surviving inhabitants are barely held together. Attenborough conveys in a towering but terrifying performance the very essence of a weak and pathetic creature clinging on because of the depth of his depravity and need for victims. John Hurt and Judy Geeson are also excellent, each probably giving one of their best ever performances. It is the intensity of the acting, the very grime and grimness of the building they share and the streets they walk that make one flinch at the very sight and sound of life within this horrible unforgiving little world, largely orchestrated by and for the benefit of Mr Christie, with his numerous and wretched little cups of tea. After watching this and managing to extricate myself from the horrible atmosphere depicted I was astonished to discover that subsequent to the hanging and subsequent pardoning and re-burial of Timothy Evans there is now a consensus that suggests that maybe he really did kill his wife and child. This still leaves the psychopathic necrophilic serial killer that was Christie but even so....

I couldn't help but feel that the film is about the British psyche in post-war and post-colonial Britain. The film was representative of a time when British control and power over the rest of the world was on the wane. With their best already behind them, the British were trying to find a new purpose. I wrote the above for my review of Look Back in Anger. Like the characters in Look Back in Anger, Christie, Beryl Evans and Timothy Evans seem to have no future. Their meager residences with barely hidden squalor had decline and desolation written all over them.The film is subtly terrifying and gruesome. It is under-directed with a zoom in (or dolly in?) often used to punctuate many scenes. There is a play like quality to the sets with a single light used in the sordid and seedy indoor scenes. Words cannot describe how good John Hurt is in this film. He is the very embodiment of the illiterate, confused and helpless working class man. The scene where he is surrounded and sneered at by patrons at a bar was very very sad. Richard Attenborough as Christie was menacing and insidious. But were we supposed to feel some sympathy for the cunning and murderous Christie? Why else was the film mostly told from his point of view?

The first time I saw this movie was at least 30 years ago. Sleepless night. Richard Attenboroughs' portrayal of the nerdy "doctor" who was a real life serial killer terrified. Watched again 10 years later. Same effect. No sleep.Sets are extremely claustrophobic & the soundtrack of endless clattering tea cups & kettles, w/trains rattling by the flat all day & night are a set-up to hiss of gas pipes that creates an ambiance so depressing, eerie, and unbelievably frightening when you realize what's coming to Christie's victims...aagh. This movie is as suspense-filled as any Hitchcock movie.John Hurt ~ electrifying as always ~ plays a man falsely accused ~ got the gallows when he had no idea what happened ~ genius performance ~Horribly horrifyig horror movie This is one of the scariest movies ever. Extremely hard to watch but absolute genius acting