mosquitodragon’s review published on Letterboxd:
I am hurting. This is a bruiser. Fuck me.
10 Rillington Place is an address you might not want to visit. Seems innocuous on first glance. Decrepit London suburbia (it reminded me of Mrs Wilberforce's house in The Ladykillers - what a jarring piece of narrative symmetry, right down to the title). Homely little Dickie Attenborough. Direction from one of Hollywood's dependable journeymen, Richard Fleischer. How horrible can this really get?
This is about as grim and sad and horrific as cinema gets. Accentuated, obviously, by the fact that this is not a scary story someone made up, but a real thing that happened. Right from the beginning - having been introduced bluntly to John Reginald Christie's murderous nature - we clock the appalling stupidity of Tim Evans (John Hurt), tragically responsible for the well-being of his own sweet wife and baby girl, and we know this story is headed straight to hell. It's inevitable. There's nothing in this late-40's British society that's going to stop the tragedy unfolding.
Fleischer directs with a sure hand - implacably clear in his delineation of the narrative on screen. Attenborough gives a masterful performance - odious to the point of nauseating. Hurt is a bundle of raw nerve as Evans - this walking disaster combining pride, self-delusion, petty deceit and extreme childishness. Just thinking of the way this all goes down makes the bile rise to the back of my throat.
I can't fault the film-making. Powerful, effective. But this is tough, guys. Don't expect a walk in the park.
