THE story of Symptoms is an odd one. A dark, psychological study of full-blown mental collapse, it starred the supremely odd Angela Pleasence as a well-off but deeply troubled young woman losing track of reality in a crumbling old English mansion with gruesomely murderous results.
It was made in Britain by Jose Ramon Larraz, a Spanish director now best remembered for Vampyres, an excursion into adult sex horror that would mark a high point in a career that’s been dedicated to delivering increasingly tatty exploitation offerings ever since. It was the UK Palme d’Or entry for the 1974 Cannes film festival but despite such a prestigious accolade the film pretty much disappeared from view thereafter.
A miserable 'blink and you’ll miss it' cinema run and a single late-night TV screening in the 1980s and it was gone. The negatives were believed lost and the movie destined to be remembered as just another cult curio to be added to the BFI 'most wanted' list.
That all changed in 2014 when the negatives miraculously appeared and Cinematek in Belgium began the painful process of restoration. The results that can be seen in the BFI dual-format edition unveiled this month are hugely impressive.
A menacing and moody modern gothic tale of repression and psychosis, it’s a film that anybody interested in the possibilities of dark, low-budget 1970s cinema will want to own.
Angela Pleasence – daughter of the great Donald – is Helen, a frail figure who has returned from a period of recuperation in Switzerland to stay at the remote country mansion she owns in the English countryside.
She’s brought a female friend called Ann (Lorna Heilbron) along for company but their peaceful retreat takes a nasty turn when the surly odd job man Brady (the brilliant Peter Vaughn who will always be Grouty from Porridge to me) starts to take an interest in arrangements at the old house and a woman’s body is found in the nearby lake.
There’s the issue of the whereabouts of Helen’s previous female visitor Cora and Ann’s possessive ex-boyfriend who comes calling to bring her back to the big city to consider as well but through it all it’s the creepy, lonely figure of Helen who holds our attention as her hyper-sensitive hearing picks up every cracking branch in the woods and every possible footstep in the attic.
Within that classic gothic set-up Larraz rolls out a tense drama that is slow burning but explodes at key moments with a violence that's genuinely shocking. He shoots the countryside beautifully with sun streaming through the trees and water rippling on the ominous lake.
The debt his work here owes to Polanski’s Repulsion from 1965 is clear. Like the Polish director’s breakthrough British film, which was also sent to Cannes, it’s the story of a fragile young female confronted with sex and fragmenting rapidly.
Influenced it may be but a cold copy it certainly isn’t. Larraz’s film is a slow rolling dream, shot through with rich autumnal colours. Pleasence turns in a performance that's simply unforgettable.
