HOW AWFUL ABOUT ALLAN (1970)
Dir: Curtis Harrington

Curtis Harrington is a director with often large ideas that never quite cohese on the small screen. Of his theatrical releases, the debut Night Tide (1960) and Games (1967) contain impressive moments of dreamy unease and menace, while others range from mediocre (What's the Matter with Helen? 1972) to inspired (Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? 1972). The fascination with question marks in the titles remains unexplained. Harrington's television output is consistent however – plodding, dull and predictable. The high point of How Awful About Allan is its sensational title – lurid and creepily colloquial at the same time.
An Aaron Spelling Production (no surprise for a 70s TV Movie of the Week), blessed with a truly thespian cast, the weak plot and stagey direction keep the production grounded. From potentially atmospheric settings to Alan's midnight wanderings, pursued by voices of potential madness and shadowy figures of the mind, Harrington's lackluster direction and general unenthusiam for the material keep the film from ever even getting off the ground. 90% of the action occurs inside three rooms of the house and the cast is essentially three characters in total. Neighborhood drama club production anyone? Adapting for the stage would be a snap.

Returning from an 8-month stint in a mental hospital, after the death of his father and disfigurement of his sister in a household fire, Alan (Anthony Perkins) is suffering from hysterical blindness and a generally dyspeptic attitude towards everything around him. His sister (Julie Harris) is accomodating but frazzled, fearing for his sanity and doubtful that any real progress was made by the doctors. To make ends meet, the now financially strapped siblings take in a mysterious boarder with odd hours and an even scarier voice (imagine Paul Williams with laringytis). Naturally Allan begins to doubt his own sanity, especially once the boarder, or some stealthy night owl, takes to wandering the house whispering his name and pushing him down stairs.

The two standouts in the tiny cast are Harris (always good in her TV work, from guest spots on Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected to her recurring role as Val Ewings' meddling hillbilly mama on Knot's Landing) and Joan Hackett as Olivia, the kindly next door neighbor and Allan's former lover. Perkins is watchable, but his character is so overwhelmingly annoying it is quite impossible to feel any concern for him or his predicament. Within the first half hour I kept hoping the phantom boarder would be successful in his attempts to throw him down the staircase or lead him out a window. Perkins really shows once again that he is the ultimate one trick pony, chanelling Norman Bates over and over in his large repertoire of disturbed protagonists. (Even worse, Harrington ends the film with a hack director's rip-off of Psycho's chilling final shot; Perkins grins menacingly at the camera, suggesting future horrors to come. Unfortunately the only horror the audience can imagine at this point is that the film might continue after the commercial break.)

Nonetheless the generic conventions of the horror film are, in their repetition and familiarity, reliable pleasures, and How Awful About Allan at least manages to give us a spooky house at night, thunderstorms and howling winds. Additionally, Harris and Hackett are great enough to rise above the material, particularly Harris, as she stares in the mirror ever so briefly at her damaged face, fingering the rubber skinpiece covering her burns, and smoldering with resentment.