HoopTober 8: Mosquito Takes Mandragon

Movie 61
3rd of 4 Hammer films

Although the term "Hitchcockian" gets thrown around a lot in regard to Taste of Fear, and not without good reason, there's no doubting the real template upon which this film is based: Henri-George Clouzot's Diabolique - almost to the point of plagiarism, in fact. We have one vulnerable young woman - Penny (Susan Strasberg) - under the care of Jane (Ann Todd) a mother figure (i.e. overtones of maternalism but clear signals that she's not a mother to Penny - not just her step-motherhood but also her younger age and the fact they've never met prior to the events of the film). We also have a missing patriarch - dead or not? - and even the central story device of a disused swimming pool full of murky stagnant water. If Diabolsploitation was a thing, Taste of Fear would be the classic example.

Like I've said many times before, though: originality in a film is nice, but not essential. Even when a concept is ripped off so completely, and especially if the source material is good, I'm perfectly willing to give it a go. Having said that, Taste of Fear tried my patience just a little bit throughout its first half. Things move somewhat slowly, with quite a bit of time devoted to Penny's budding romance with chauffeur, Robert (Ronald Lewis). But there are a couple of nicely creepy sequences involving Penny stumbling on what she thinks is her father's corpse during the night (not once but twice) - hold onto those, because things get a lot better in the second half.

Here, our twist (I won't say what, but we all knew there would be one, didn't we?) comes in the second act and it dials up the tension and thrills beautifully. We get a couple of plot developments which are really unexpected, and the big mystery you may think you have decoded early may not turn out to be the central one.

This thing really does wind itself up into a suspense thriller worthy of comparison with its obvious points of inspiration. Although Seth Holt's rather workmanlike direction means this will never reach the heights of something by Hitchcock or Clouzot, it's still a very entertaining thriller indeed. I was pleasantly surprised by this film, and it shows again that Hammer's thriller output was really not bad at all.