The Shout (1978)

The Shout (1978)

John Hurt is one of my favourite actors. He's just brilliant in everything, isn't it? There's rarely a scene in which he wont steal it by being John Hurt.

And yet, The Shout is that rarest of beasts, where Hurt is second fiddle to another acting talent. For, from the moment he is introduced scoring a cricket match, the eyes are drawn irretrievably towards the magnetic danger of Alan Bates. As Crossley, Bates is eyes, silence and whispered lines, but so in control of the character and screen he manages to blow away everything around him. 

 

 
And he's not in a meagre cast either. John Hurt is superb as the husband who (being charitable) perhaps daydreams of having it off with Carol Drinkwater, only for things to spiral out of his control in the other direction. Drinkwater later was the original Helen in All Creatures Great and Small, before being fired for having too much chemistry with Christopher Timothy! The equally great Susannah York plays Hurt's wife with aplomb and just that bit of character mystery - even playing for unreliable narrator, it remains unclear quite who is leading who in this failed marriage with interloper.

The other big star in the cast is the location footage. Devon has never looked such an inhospitable landscape, and the soundscape that follows it does it apt justice. This is a film in which the cinematography is as part the atmosphere of the film as the acting.

The Shout is a forgotten folk horror tale from the 1970s, in which a mysterious stranger invades the home of a young couple. A stranger who seems to possess the secret to kill people with a single shout. (That scene is incredibly well done, incidentally, and would have been easily looked daft with lesser direction and acting).

Add in the landscape, the actors, the ethereal direction, and this is a film soaked in suitably horrific atmosphere. Forgo the ending which is a bit confused, and soak in the joy of the piece.