Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Hammer or British

Playing with Straight On Till Morning in the UK and Demons of the Mind in the U.S., this Hammer film finds Peggy (Judy Geeson) moving with her husband Robert (Ralph Bates) to work at a school in the countryside. The night before they leave, she’s attacked by a man with a fake arm, which sends her into hysterics. 

Robert’s new boss is Michael Carmichael (Peter Cushing), who is married to Molly (Joan Collins). After their first meeting, Peggy is again attacked by the one-armed man. The next night, she notices that Robert only has one arm; she shoots at him with a shotgun, but it doesn’t stop him. She faints, only for her husband to reveal that there’s no job at the school. He’s treating Robert, who plays recordings of the old students to try to remember what it was like before a fire destroyed the school.

The twists start here, as Robert and Molly have been having an affair, and he only married Peggy to drive her insane and make her kill Michael. Michael, however, is a step ahead, using the intercom of the school to taunt his enemies, even tying up his wife and coaxing Robert into shooting her, thinking that it’s him. Peggy survives, thanks to the one-armed man she believed was her enemy; her husband’s body hangs from a noose as choir music plays from the empty school.

Directed by Jimmy Sangster, who co-wrote the script with Michael Syson, this is the kind of cold, dreary British murder mystery I love. It’s not as stylish as the Giallo, but it comes from the same fione. 

You can watch this on Tubi.