'The Night Digger' (aka 'The Road Builder') is an effective, atmospheric thriller in which a young man (Nicholas Clay) blags his way into a falling apart mansion in Windsor and forms relationships with the occupants, a downtrodden, middle aged spinster (Patricia Neal) and her blind, manipulative adoptive mother (Pamela Brown).
The young man is very handy around the house and garden but, as a school kid, he was traumatised by being unable to perform when sexually assaulted by some voracious, elderly gypsy ladies (yes, really), so now he's a sex case who uses a long leather strap to get his kicks, before killing and dumping the bodies of his female victims in the foundations of a motorway.
With music by Bernard Hermann, 'The Night Digger' is actually rather good in a slightly slow way. Nice cast (including the ever barking Graham Crowden), and a fair few dark twists and turns courtesy of scriptwriter Roald Dahl (Neal's husband) make this an interesting tale of the (mostly) unexpected.
Now Nicholas Clay was in (I think it was called) "Virtual Murder" wasn't he? And he was Lancelot in Excalibur too as well. You got anything on "Virtual Murder" I remember it being a bit pants but I might be wrong.
ReplyDeleteBernard Hermann AND Roald Dahl? Fuck, I've got to get out less and stay in watching stuff more
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