DYING ROOM ONLY (1973) Dir: Philip Leacock

Far, far better than a made-for-TV thriller has the right to be, Dying Room Only owes most of its chilling impact to an original teleplay from horror maestro Richard Matheson (based on his own short story) and a gritty, nervous performance from an unexpectedly chic Cloris Leachman.

Stranded in a Southwestern desert cafe after the sudden disappearance of her hubby (Dabney Coleman) in a plot device prefiguring by 20 years the Euro horror mega-hit The Vanishing, Leachman confronts some seriously sinister locals while searching for her better half. (In a nice - and strongly acted - characterization against his usual "victim", Ned Beatty plays the heavy).

A sense of isolation, frustration and mounting unease give way to full-blown panic as Leachman learns the dark secrets of the roadside eatery and attached motel, and plot, tone and direction never degrade into predictable cliches or the "softening" conclusions so favored by certain TV movies. Then again this is the 70s, that golden age of filmed dark fables indicative of a nation's upheavals and crises.