Saturday 14 April 2012

Strange And Perverse


'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.

2 comments:

  1. 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.

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  2. Bernard Hermann AND Roald Dahl? Fuck, I've got to get out less and stay in watching stuff more

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