Anglophiles like myself are all too familiar with the bizarre, yet distinctive, style the BBC employed for the vast majority of their output in the 70s and 80s. Location footage would be shot on film, but interiors were inevitably shot on video, complete with artless overhead lighting. It took years but I eventually acclimated to that bizarre style. But I never expected a feature film to do this.
That film is 1973’s Voices, an alleged thriller starring David Hemmings and Gayle Hunnicutt. I say “alleged” because it is like a community theatre staging of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woof?, as shot on cheap videotape. This, the bulk of the picture, is wrapped around, and occasionally interspersed with, filmed elements that take place outdoors.
The movie’s opening is where it shows the most promise. Not coincidentally, it begins on film. We see a happy family docking their boat just upstream from a dam. After a picnic lunch on the boat, mom and dad get their freak on while the son runs around on the dam unsupervised. The movie so far looks like Don’t Look Now. Think this scene is going to turn out like Don’t Look Now? Do you think there’s any way it couldn’t?
After the credits, we cut to some point in the future and the parents driving through an exceptionally thick fog. They narrowly miss one oncoming vehicle after another before arriving at a decrepit mansion handed down through Hunnicutt’s family.
Once they step inside, we’re going to be stuck with this bickering couple for a looong time. Betraying its stage origins, the action (to generously apply the word) will take place in only one room. Ugh. If I wanted to see a play, I’d go to a play and not a movie of a play. And if I wanted to spend 90 minutes watching a couple engage in lowest-common-denominator bickering I would…well, I wouldn’t.
At least Hemmings and Hunnicutt should have been convincing as that couple since the actors were currently in the death throes of their real-life marriage. Unfortunately, I didn’t believe them even when they were likely playing themselves, as that’s because they are served so poorly by the script. The dialogue is terrible throughout, with no notable exceptions.
The horror element is introduced as Hunnicutt starts hearing children’s voices in the house. Are these possibly gh-gh-gh-ghost children?! Eventually, a ball rolls out of an open door because of course one does. A girl dressed for a century earlier steps into the room and retrieves the ball before Hunnicutt can roll it back into The Changling, where it belongs. The girl doesn’t invite the woman to play with her forever and ever and ever, but she might as well have done that.
I hated this movie and I hated both leads in it. And yet, Hemmings fares the worse of the two, as his character is such an exceptionally douchey, patronizing, sarcastic asshole. I know there are people like this, and I think there are places for characters like this in films, but why did I have the spend 90 minutes with this person?
In this essay, I have tried desperately to not drop clues that may give away the ending. Alas, there is nothing to give away. Some would say the modern viewer has seen so many supernatural thrillers they will inevitably realize the twist. I’m not exactly a rocket surgeon, but I’m pretty sure I would foreseen the ending even if I had watched it at the time of its original release.
I can’t think of a reason to recommend Voices. The material here would be better suited to a half-hour anthology series. Even then, this would be thin gruel, complete with a “twist” a child could predict. That said, if you want to spend over an hour watching two deeply unpleasant people bicker on a badly lit set, I’m sure there are many such programs courtesy of the BBC. They’ll even be shot on video.
Dir: Kevin Billington
Starring David Hemmings, Gayle Hunnicutt
Watched on Powerhouse/Indicator blu-ray