A stranger in a distinctive pair of cowboy boots (we see him only from the waist down) leaves a cinema – which is screening the (fictional) films Rapist Cult and The Convent Murders – and walks alone along the dark street.
A passing car splashes mud on his boots . . .
The car stops at the railway station where George (Robin Bailey) and Betty (Dorothy Alison) Rexton are collecting their niece, Sarah (Mia Farrow), who was recently blinded when she was thrown from a horse and has come for a recuperative stay with her aunt and uncle on their large farm in the English countryside.
The following day, we see the unidentified man in boots watching from inside a pub as Mr and Mrs Rexton return from shopping to discover that their Mercedes has been deliberately scratched.
While Sarah is visiting her boyfriend, Steve (Norman Eshley), boots-man turns up at the Rexton farm and murders the entire family – yep, turns out he’s a homicidal maniac (or just really sensitive about his boots).
Sarah returns to the house and goes to bed assuming the family have gone out, unaware that the lifeless bodies of her relatives are all around her – which leads to some breathtakingly suspenseful moments and superb, inventive camera angles which gradually disclose the horror to the audience.
Her dead niece, Sandy (Diane Grayson) is lying on the bed beside her and she almost steps into a bath where the killer has dumped the corpse of her uncle.
Worse is yet to come: Sarah learns from the dying gardener that the mysterious psycho killer with the boots is still hanging around the house!
Written by British TV legend Brian Clemens, the story is beautifully filmed and sustains a tense and disturbing atmosphere throughout. Unfortunately, the ending feels rushed with the killer suddenly revealed and everything over too quickly.
Many of the scenes, including the opening views of the railway station, were filmed in and around Wokingham, Berkshire. The farm exteriors were filmed at the Grade II listed Binfield Manor which dates from 1754.
Released in some markets as Blind Terror and elsewhere as See No Evil.
Sarah
Mia Farrow
Betty Rexton
Dorothy Alison
George Rexton
Robin Bailey
Sandy Rexton
Diane Grayson
Barker
Brian Rawlinson
Frost
Christopher Matthews
Steve Reding
Norman Eshley
Jacko
Paul Nicholas
Steve’s Men
Max Faulkner
Scott Fredericks
Reg Harding
Gypsy Mother
Lila Kaye
Gypsy Jack
Barrie Houghton
Gypsy Tom
Michael Elphick
Doctor
Donald Bisset
Director
Richard Fleischer
