STARK FEAR (1962)

Over the decades, Hollywood's Golden Age classic films have nearly been pulverized to dust by exhaustive, glowing critiques. Allow me to pulverize this unknown low-budget thriller-ette distributed by Ellis Films. Who? Ned Hockman was given the directing duties but he abandoned the project over conflicts with the cast. Actor Skip Homeier took over. I imagine he was never more relieved to not be credited. One hopes this psychological exploitation film would be about sixty minutes due to the score alone. Unfortunately, the viewer is stuck for an unbearable extra eleven minutes of soapy opera. One might dismiss the sleazy screenplay by Dwight Swain, but dismissing the music score by Lawrence Fisher is impossible. It is the single worst element of this film. The music supporting an oil derrick pounding away in the opening is totally misplaced for an intense drama. There are sections that flit from an Oklahoma hoedown to an early Hal Roach film, to schizophrenic terror, each with stark transitions. The score can be defined as the worst example of leitmotifs. Added annoyance is a sound quality suggesting the score surely was lifted from a decades-old source played by amateur musicians. In an unabashed attempt to copy Bernard Herrman's Psycho score, frantic, dissonant strings accompany an over-the-shoulder camera closeup of Beverly Garland driving a 1960 Buick. Competent performances aside, the film is an ugly account even without a score.

The aforementioned Homeier plays a sadistic—something of an adult role distinction—a husband who mentally tortures his wife, Garland. Despicable he. His dead mother fixation explains a lot about the psychotic character inspired by a blockbuster two years prior. When a man loathes a woman—apologies to the Percy Sledge hit—there is little he will not do to impose his hatred upon her. The fuming husband is seen throwing bottles at her mantle picture, breaking its glass before falling to the floor. The Buick floats into the driveway. Ah, “home sweet home.” It is her husband's birthday. There is a cake to help celebrate. She adds a single candle—like the one-year-old he is—and puts a romantic album on the Hi-Fi. He views this simply as a ploy to divert her “affair” with her boss. After viciously verbally abusing her, Homeier has a bipolar moment as they romantically embrace on the couch. While the record spins, oddly superimposed—fading in and out—is footage of an abstract painting on their wall. One may look at an abstract painting and wonder what is the point. So goes their marriage.

Kenneth Tobey—the boss—is up to his knees in Oklahoma crude. A former business rival of Homeier, they have had a long-standing hate relationship. The single, cryptic opening voice-over does not quite divulge this. Tobey is empathetic to Garland's marriage and has come to her aide on more than one occasion. Jealousy runs deep in Homeier's veins and he demands she stop working for Tobey. Never mind that he is on the verge of being fired and currently bringing in little income. Garland tries to stick with her disturbed husband which few moviegoers can figure. She feels it is her wifely duty to find him nevertheless. But she cannot. The script salaciously places her into some unlikely, personally dangerous and spooky situations in her discovery. Even coming upon a nighttime Comanche celebration dance that could not have been anticipated by her or the audience. Hitting a low point, the script has her raped by a drunken slob—hired by the demented Homeier.

The future of Homeier is of little interest to the moviegoer—indeed it is never revealed. Viewers can take comfort in the fact that his marriage is dissolved. She and Tobey enjoy an exhaustive weekend walking tour of Eureka Springs, Arkansas—through overlapping scenes of the happy couple accompanied by Fisher's goofy “1930s serial” music. Garland returns to work for Tobey. He seems to be the right man but he harbor's a stark secret.