Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski • 1978 • United Kingdom
Starring Alan Bates, Susannah York, John Hurt
This entrancing psychosexual puzzle thriller from Jerzy Skolimowski features a memorably unsettling performance from Alan Bates as an enigmatic drifter who insinuates himself into the lives of an experimental electronic composer (John Hurt) and his wife (Susannah York) living in a remote coastal cottage. Claiming to possess knowledge of Aboriginal magic—in particular a scream that can kill anyone who hears it—the mysterious stranger draws the couple into a vortex of desire and control, with the tension immeasurably enhanced by an innovative soundtrack by Michael Rutherford and Tony Banks of the pioneering prog-rock group Genesis.
Up Next in Eurothrillers
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The Hit
Directed by Stephen Frears • 1984 • United Kingdom
Starring Terence Stamp, John Hurt, Tim RothTerence Stamp is Willie, a gangster’s henchman turned “supergrass” (informer) trying to live in peaceful hiding in a remote Spanish village. Sun-dappled bliss turns to nerve-racking suspense, however, ...
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The Vanishing
Directed by George Sluizer • 1988 • Netherlands
Starring Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter SteegeA young man embarks on an obsessive search for the girlfriend who mysteriously disappeared while the couple were taking a sunny vacation trip, and his three-year investigation dra...
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La cérémonie
Directed by Claude Chabrol • 1995 • France, Germany
Starring Sandrine Bonnaire, Isabelle Huppert, Jacqueline BissetClaude Chabrol’s forty-ninth feature stands as the crowning achievement of his prolific career—a coolly riveting study of class dynamics, the psychology of crime, and the sordid se...
