A PLACE TO DIE (1972)
Feature-length episode of British TV Series “Thriller”
Article 3837 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-5-2012
Posting Date: 2-15-2012
Directed by Peter Jefferies
Featuring Bryan Marshall, Alexandra Hay, John Turner
Country: UK
What it is: Small town with a secret…

A doctor takes over a practice in a small community. His lovely wife, recovering from a foot injury, is greeted with joy by the community because she fits the description of a woman in an old superstition. Unfortunately, that means the wife is in deadly peril…

For the second day in a row, I’m watching a movie in which the heroine is saddled with a limp. In yesterday’s movie, it was there to up the suspense factor by making it difficult for her to escape from her pursuer; here, it’s the Maguffin that drives the direction of the plot. Now, I’ve seen a number of episodes from the British TV series “Thriller” for this series, and a good number of them have been very marginal in terms of their genre content. That’s not so with this one; it falls clearly into horror territory, and fits in well with any assortment of movies involving people moving to strange and hostile towns that harbor deep, dark secrets, though it’s nice in this one that the villagers react with a strange joy and generosity that is perhaps even more unsettling than simple hostility. There are some problems with story logic in this one; for example, if you were trying to get answers to questions about the town’s secrets, would you really question the town’s weirdest character who also happens to be a mute? Despite the clumsiness, this is nevertheless one of the better episodes of the series, and it does feel genuinely creepy on occasion.