This movie tells a story that has been echoed in many details in others since. But with the difference that it is genuinely a true story. It is both a chilling horror story and also a powerful depiction of the argument against any irreversible punishment, here being the death penalty.
It has become a cliché that evil is banal. It is the heartless emptiness of such banality which we find in Attenborough's depiction of evil. There are other things that point up the evilness of his character. That he abuses the trust of the vulnerable who turn to him for help, so that his victims are already victims in their life and thus their murder all the more undeserving. Most of all, that he is prepared to allow an innocent man to die for his actions. The plot lines of many tales of the wrongly accused and pursued come to mind. Except that this is not fantasy.
The domestic settings are both banal but also claustrophobic. I am even reminded of "Eraserhead". Moreover, this movie captures something peculiarly nightmarish that those who have lived in "bed-sit land" have often encountered, when incompatible domesticities lived cheek-by-jowl interact in a malignly dissonant manner. That malignancy here highlighted by the macabre practices of the secretive landlord.
It has become a cliché that evil is banal. It is the heartless emptiness of such banality which we find in Attenborough's depiction of evil. There are other things that point up the evilness of his character. That he abuses the trust of the vulnerable who turn to him for help, so that his victims are already victims in their life and thus their murder all the more undeserving. Most of all, that he is prepared to allow an innocent man to die for his actions. The plot lines of many tales of the wrongly accused and pursued come to mind. Except that this is not fantasy.
The domestic settings are both banal but also claustrophobic. I am even reminded of "Eraserhead". Moreover, this movie captures something peculiarly nightmarish that those who have lived in "bed-sit land" have often encountered, when incompatible domesticities lived cheek-by-jowl interact in a malignly dissonant manner. That malignancy here highlighted by the macabre practices of the secretive landlord.