“Get out of here Anthony or I’ll shout your bloody ears off.”
Based on a short story by Robert Graves, Alan Bates plays ruggedly handsome weirdo Crossley who relates a story to Tim Curry while they are at a cricket match for patients at an insane asylum. In the story he meets Anthony (John Hurt) outside a church and invites himself to lunch at which point he makes Antony and his wife (Susannah York) feel uncomfortable by saying things like “No, no children. None that survived anyway. Under Australian aboriginal law, either parent has the right to kill their offspring within a few weeks of birth. Always I chose to exercise that right.” Bates stays at their house where Antony makes his living composing dodgy 70’s electronic musique concrete (supplied by Tony Banks of Genesis). Bates tells Anthony about a death shout that can kill any man, of which Anthony is first skeptical, and begins to weave an erotic spell on Anthony’s wife. While the supernatural element is incredibly silly the acting is superb and I found the relationship between the three leads highly compelling.
3/5
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