Anna Massey

Grim yet distinctly humorous, this grisly thriller concerns a rapist-murderer who terrorizes modern London.

Young ANN LAKE has just moved to England from America with her successful but controlling brother STEPHEN. The two are extremely close, with Stephen doting upon Ann. In a hurry the day she enrolls her child, BUNNY, in a private school, Ann leaves her in the First Day room and asks the school's female German COOK to watch her and then runs off to meet the movers and do errands. At noon, Ann returns to the school to pick up Bunny. To her increasing dismay, however, no one at the school seems to know where Bunny is or even who she is. Ann interrogates one of the school's staff, Elvira, who hasn't a clue about the child. When the arrogant Stephen arrives, he badgers Elvira further. Soon, SUPT. NEWHOUSE, an unflappable British police officer, arrives, looking into the matter. He talks with all parties involved, including ADA FORD, one of the school's elderly founders. The eccentric Ada resides in an upstairs room, where she's currently compiling a tome about childhood nightmares. Newhouse continues his investigation, tolerating the threats and barbs from Ann's increasingly accusatory brother, Stephen. But as Newhouse puts together Ann's profile, he begins to doubt her story in subtle ways. After all, since no one saw the child (the Cook has quit and disappeared) he has to wonder if Ann even has a child. Is she delusional, perhaps? The insinuation infuriates Stephen, but he seems to back it up with references to Ann having had an imaginary playmate named Bunny as a child. Ann must now try to find clues that her child really existed. She must also fend off her creepy new landlord, WILSON, an aging Lothario actor who's always drunk and carting about his little dog. The POLICE interrogate him, as well. When Stephen comes across Newhouse talking and drinking with Ann in a pub, he blows up at the officer, threatening and accusing him. As police attempt to locate the Cook, Ann's nightmare intensifies. Desperate for evidence that will prove the existence of her child, she suddenly remembers the claim check for a doll hospital that's repairing Bunny's doll. In spite of the late hour, Ann goes off in a cab after telling Stephen where she's going. In the meantime, Newhouse and his MEN look into the ship travel records that brought Ann and Bunny to England. Ann finds the doll shop, which, although closed, has an unlocked door. She locates the doll. Stephen has followed her, however, and once Ann presents him with the doll and goes off to deal with the Proprietor, Stephen gets a crazed look in his eye and sets the doll afire. Ann is horrified and Stephen strikes her and takes her to a hospital unconscious and leaves her. Ann escapes the hospital and locates Stephen in the remote house they originally temporarily lived in after arriving in England where he has Bunny hidden. Stephen is the kidnapper! Indeed, Stephen is so close to his sister Ann he found Bunny an intrusion in their relationship. Stephen has now lapsed into another identity - a more murderous one and likely an extension of their imaginary selves as children. He's now intent upon killing the child, so as to have sole access to his sister again. Ann gets Bunny away from the demented Stephen by engaging him in a series of children's games. Stephen chases Ann and Bunny, but Newhouse and the Police soon arrive, arresting the demented brother. They finally found the evidence they needed of the child's existence by way of the ship's passenger records.

A young man named Mark Lewis (Carle Boehm) walks the streets of London, England with a 16mm camera turned on and hidden from sight. He approaches a prostitute on the street where she takes him back to her room. Once there, she looks towards him and becomes terribly frightened. That night back in his flat, Mark views the film he took of him killing the prostitute. The next morning, he films the police investigation of her murder for a documentary that he is making. Mark works as a focus puller at a small film studio, but for extra money he takes girlie pictures above a corner cigar store. Back at his apartment house, he meets Helen Stephens (Anna Massey), a young woman who lives with her blind mother (Maxine Audley) in the downstairs flat. Taking a curious liking to Mark, Helen visits his flat, which has a projection room and a photographic lab. Mark tells Helen that while he works at a local film studio, he wants to become a film director. Mark shows Helen black-and-white films that were taken of him when he was a child. She becomes horrified to see that his scientist father used him as a guinea pig in various experiments, taking movies of him crying while watching a man-woman couple have sex nearby and screaming when his father wakes him up by throwing a lizard on his bed. Mark tells Helen that his whole childhood was filmed; that his father was interested in the reactions of fear to the nervous system. After a days work at the film studio, the understudy Vivian (Moira Shearer) stays behind for a secret rendezvous with Mark, who has promised to give her a screen test for his documentary. Mark turns on his 16mm camera. A blade extended from the tripod is aimed directly at her head. Vivian screams.... The next day her body is discovered at the studio. Mark films the police investigation. Mark promises Helen he will take pictures for a children's book she is writing. They go out on a date. She makes him leave his camera behind and for the first time, Mark seems at ease and to be enjoying himself and Helen's company. Afterwords, Helen kisses Mark goodnight and they both go back to their respective flats. He goes home to his upstairs flat and turns on the projector, not knowing that Mrs. Stevens is there. While watching the murder of Vivian he committed on the previous night, he is a little disappointed that Vivian's face does not have the right expression of terror that he is seeking. Mrs. Stevens startles him with her presence. Being blind, she doesn't know what Mark was screening, but she is suspicious of him nevertheless. Mark tries talking to Mrs. Stevens that he was only screening a loaned film from the studio, but he quickly realizes that there is no use to trying to con her. He promises Mrs. Stevens that he will never film Helen and put her in danger. Mrs. Stevens tells Mark to get psychological help. At the studios, Mark speaks to Dr. Rosen (Martin Miller), a psychiatrist who knew his late father. After a discussion, Mark finds out that the cure for a scoptophiliac (one who obtains sexual pleasure by looking at erotic objects or pictures, nude women, sexual intercourse acts, etc) will take at least two years... far too long for Mark. The police detectives investigating the murders of the prostitute and Vivian become suspicious of this conversation. They start to tail Mark. He knows that he is being followed, but he goes to take pictures of the model Millie (Pamela Green) above the cigar store. Later, the detectives find her dead. Helen enters Mark's flat, She turns on the film projector and sees Vivian's murder. Mark returns and confessed his crimes. He shows her the blade on the camera and an attached mirror so his victims can seem themselves as they die. The police then arrive to arrest Mark as he films them. Then he turns the camera on himself and runs into the blade, seeing his own scared face in the mirror as he dies.