So far, I have only seen Angela Pleasence in two movies: From Beyond the Grave, which is one of those Amicus anthology films, and 1974’s Symptoms. From those performances, I would have thought she would be a very weird, socially awkward and slightly off-putting person in real life. Lord knows she’s creepy enough in these two pictures. And yet, a present day interview with her on the blu-ray for the latter film reveals she is affable and even has a good sense of humor about herself. She even talks about how she only survived having a studio light fall on her head during the production because, as she self-effacingly says, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but I have this perfectly round head”.
Indeed, she does. At the risk of sounding uncharitable, she also looks exactly like how one would imagine if her father, famous actor Donald, might appear if he had been a woman. Let’s just say she has a distinctive appearance, and it is one that makes her appropriately cast in fare such as this.
She plays a disturbed young woman who lives alone in an old mansion. A friend played by Lorna Heilbron has come to stay with her for a while and Pleasence explains to her she only ever uses the kitchen and a couple of bedrooms. She also might be using the attic, from which Pleasance hears noises at night as she lies in bed.
She hears other things, in what is obviously schizophrenia or something like it. She is also seeing things, such as former houseguest Marie-Paule Mailleux, who might be a ghost, might only be in Pleasance’s mind or might even be alive and covertly lurking around the place. We know she was real at some point, as there is a framed picture of her that seems to move around the house a great deal. That, or there are multiple copies of it. Either way, that’s rather telling on its own.
There aren’t many other characters in this independent British production. Chief among them is a creepy groundkeeper played by Peter Vaughan. He has a very contentious relationship with Pleasence, so I was surprised to learn in a bonus interview on the disc the man was great friends with her dad and essentially a second father to her.
I was surprised to see Raymond Huntley in this, but only because I had just seen him in So Evil My Love. Mind you, he is of the advanced age here at which I best remember him, and not the impossibly young version from the other film.
There isn’t much more I can say without spoiling the film. I will say that, if one believes they would be predisposed to enjoying a movie of this kind, then you likely will. Whether or not you are, and do not want me to possibly reveal too much for you, perhaps you should stop reading right now.
OK, now it’s just you and me, and I will reveal what is the major flaw of the story and that is it goes exactly in the directions I assumed it would, and I guessed most of these scant minutes into the runtime. There are no surprises here, and I do mean none whatsoever. The film can still be enjoyed for its languid and rain-soaked atmosphere, but the story was old, moth-eaten hat long before this picture was made.
Alas, it doesn’t even do that good of a job of telling its very simple story. When Heilbron finally makes it up into the creepy attic, she finds something incriminating down a heavily cobwebbed passage. Given the extent of the webbing, nobody could have been through there for quite some time, yet somebody definitely has been. To be fair, it is unclear as to how much time had passed, yet there is a problem if the viewer finds themselves thinking questions such as these.
Really, the reason to see Symptoms, if there are any, is to see Pleasence’s performance. I completely believed she is a disturbed young woman, so much so that I was shocked to discover she is not like that person in real life. If nothing else, I assume the actress had some better life skills than her character, as one should never try to spread butter using a bloody knife. One should always clean the knife of human blood before using it in the kitchen. That’s just basic etiquette.
Dir: José Ramón Larraz
Starring Angela Pleasence, Peter Vaughan, Lorna Heilbron
Watched on Mondo Macabro blu-ray