Roman Polanski's follow-up to his classic chiller Repulsion is a bleak, shivery film that defies any attempt at categorisation. Donald Pleasence is in his element as a slightly dotty retired businessman who exists with his kinky, careless wife (Françoise Dorleac) in a grotesque mansion on a lonely, gull-swept island off the Northumbrian coast. The wife tortures him mentally, twisting him round her fingers. Then two thugs on the run arrive on the island, and what follows is comedy of the blackest depths. Gilbert Taylor's black-and-white photography, shot on location on Holy Island, is magnificent by day or night. And the gravel-voiced Lionel Stander is outstanding as the chief thug. His 'Out of the way, kid' to the spoiled son of some visiting friends, is a little masterpiece of delivery. Watch for Jacqueline (billed as Jackie) Bisset, briefly on screen in one of her earliest roles.

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