Symptoms (1974)

Symptoms is one of several British movies made by Spanish director José Ramón Larraz. His best-known British movie is of course Vampyres (1974).

Symptoms is a horror movie but that doesn’t become really obvious until quite late in the movie. This is very much a slow-burn horror chiller.

Anne (Lorna Heilbron) goes to stay with her friend Helen (Angela Pleasence) in Helen’s remote country cottage. We realise right from the start that Helen is a bit odd. There could be several reasons for her oddness. She might be ill. She might be crazy. There might be supernatural influences at work. She might be legitimately afraid of her odd-job man Brady (Peter Vaughan). He does seem a bit sinister (of course Peter Vaughan was remarkably good at being slightly sinister). We do know that there’s a body in the lake. As the movie progresses several possibilities will occur to us as to how the body get there and who put it there.

Anne realises that Helen is worried about something. She seems to need Anne’s constant presence.

There’s a slight suggestion that whatever is going on could be related to sex. When Helen notices Brady looking at her she seems to overreact. Maybe she’s afraid of Brady (possibly with good reason) or maybe she has problems dealing with men.

There’s also the question of Cora. Cora is Helen’s friend. Cora often stayed with her. Cora doesn’t seem to be around any more, or is she? Anne has an odd sensation that she and Helen are not alone in the house. That’s unlikely but possible. It’s a big old house and only parts of it are in use.

Nothing very much happens for a long time, except that the atmosphere becomes more and more oppressive and mysterious. We feel that something startling, possibly something, is about to happen but it’s just a feeling. We have no hard evidence to go on.

We’re not surprised when something does happen but Larraz still manages to shock us. This has been a subtle atmospheric film and then suddenly it explodes into blood-drenched violence. And we’re still not entirely sure what actually happened.

There’s more blood to come. And we will get our answer, although perhaps not a complete answer.

The three central performances are superb. Angela Pleasence manages to make Helen a woman for who we feel quite a bit of empathy but it’s empathy mixed with unease. She apparently found Larraz difficult to work with but she still feels great admiration for his visual genius.

Peter Vaughan is wonderfully enigmatic. Brady could be entirely harmless or he could be very dangerous indeed. Vaughn was very good at that sort of thing, playing characters who seem a bit frightening but might not necessarily be evil. Everything Brady does could be interpreted as harmless or menacing.

Lorna Heilbron is very solid as Anne.

Larraz brought a European sensibility to his British movies that gives them a unique European/British hybrid feel. While Vampyres gets us straight into the action (and the bloodletting) and Symptoms is very slow-paced there are a few interesting unexpected thematic similarities between the two films.

The BFI releases includes the movie on both Blu-Ray and DVD. There are lots of extras. There’s a lengthy documentary but it was so pretentious and self-consciously arty that I bailed out after five minutes. The extras focus mainly on Vampyres rather than on Symptoms. The interview with Angela Pleasence is quite interesting.

Symptoms isn’t as successful as Vampyres but it creates a wonderfully overheated hothouse atmosphere. Both movies deal with female sexuality but in very different ways. Vampyres is overt. Symptoms is very subtle.

Symptoms is definitely worth seeing. Highly recommended.