Assault (a.k.a. In The Devil's Garden (1971)
Pardon us....we've just come out of deep mourning for the precious 91 minutes of time we wasted on this film.
Showed promise when we first stumbled on to it. We're big Anglophiles here at BQ and this is as British as you can get, with an interesting mix of young and veteran actors at their busiest in the late 1960's and 70's.
At first, the film shows signs of becoming a Brit take on the Italian giallo mysteries just beginning to make an international splash.....a serial rapist is preying on teen girls from a private school. And he's left one of them (a young Lesley Anne Downe) in a wide awake catatonic state.
Then the unseen creeper-in-the-woods turns to strangling the next victim and manages to evade every effort to catch him by the local detective (Frank Finley).
Drawn into the hunt are the school's art teacher (Suzy Kendall), and a concerned psychiatrist (James Laurenson). Red herrings meant to distract you abound, including the sleazy shiftless of husband (Tony Beckley) of the private school's. owner and Headmistress. (Dillys Hamlett).
Director Sidney Hayers brings no sense of style, impeding danger or suspense to the proceedings. The whole thing unfolds like a connect-the-dots paint-by-numbers TV movie. And the actors must've sensed that since they all look slightly bored.
Hovering around the plot like a buzzing fly is an almost unrecognizable Freddie Jones playing an annoying tabloid reporter getting in everyone's face. (He's the only one who seems to be having a good time....)
Worthless and dull from beginning to end. Even fans of the actors involved won't find much to enjoy in their work here.
Zero stars (0). Give it a hard pass.
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