PERSECUTION

 

PERSECUTION (1974) is one of the most obscure titles made during the Golden Age of the British horror film. It's a mediocre variation of PSYCHO, with a cast that deserved a much better production. 

This is a movie that starts out with a young boy drowning a cat in a bowl of milk....and it gets more depressing from there. The boy is David Masters, and his rich mother Carrie (Lana Turner) never forgives her son for this act. David killed the cat because he felt his mother loved the animal more than him, and as he grows up, his situation doesn't improve. The adult David (Ralph Bates) still lives with his mother, and is still under her thrall, despite the fact that he's married to the attractive Janie (Suzan Farmer) and has a son of his own. More personal tragedies (instigated by his mother) drive David into madness, and the situation between mother and son is reversed. 

PERSECUTION (also known as SHEBA and THE GRAVEYARD) is an unpleasant tale with unpleasant characters. The movie is dark and dreary rather than thrilling or suspenseful. The main reason it doesn't work is that Ralph Bates' David isn't sympathetic--if anything he's more deranged than his mother is. In every horror film Ralph Bates appeared in during the 1970s he played a man the viewer can't warm up to, and that's certainly the case here. David is weak-willed, unappealing, he doesn't work, and he spends most of his time moping around. How any woman--let alone one like Suzan Farmer's pretty and kindly Janice--could marry David and live with him and his domineering mother is hard to fathom. 

The past-her-prime Lana Turner isn't interesting to watch either. She looks very uncomfortable being in this picture, and she isn't able to go off the rails like a Bette Davis or a Joan Crawford would. The film suggests that Turner's Carrie has some sort of supernatural power over cats, and because of this she's able to have them do her bidding, but this element gets forgotten about by the end of the story.  Director Don Chaffey (who did much, much better work with the likes of Ray Harryhausen and Disney) uses numerous unusual camera angles and setups to try and achieve a sense of unease, but he's tied down by a weak script. (Ironically one of the credited writers for this movie was American actor Robert Hutton, who appeared as a cast member in a number of British horror/sci-fi features.) 

The film has cameos by Trevor Howard and Patrick Allen (although they might have been better off if they had stayed home), and Shelagh Fraser, Aunt Beru in STAR WARS, also has a small role. Olga Georges-Picot makes an impression as a sexy French nurse who is hired to help take care of Janice after a terrible tragedy, but it's fairly easy to predict what will happen to this character. 

PERSECUTION was made by Tyburn, a company that was formed by producer Kevin Francis (the son of director-cinematographer Freddie Francis). Tyburn was Kevin Francis' attempt at making the same type of movies as Hammer or Amicus, while using the same type of actors and crew. Tyburn's other two theatrical features, THE GHOUL and LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF, are much better known, due to the fact that they starred Peter Cushing. The fact is that all three films are not very good, but PERSECUTION is by far the worst. For various reasons that I won't get into, these three Tyburn films have fallen into a kind of public domain limbo. (The version of PERSECUTION that I watched on Tubi was titled THE GRAVEYARD, and it looked like it came from a cheap VHS tape.) 

Tyburn came along at the end of the great British horror cycle, and the films it produced couldn't even compete with the weaker entries Hammer and Amicus were putting out at the same time. PERSECUTION is notable for its cast, but watching it is not an entertaining experience.