BEWARE MY BRETHREN

Ann Todd with Tony Beckley

BEWARE MY BRETHREN (1972). Director: Robert Hartford-Davis. 

Birdy Wemys (Ann Todd) lives with her son Kenny (Tony Beckley) in an old house which has a chapel in the basement. This is used by a batty minister (Patrick Magee) for a sect of Jesus Freaks and both mother and son are members. Meanwhile someone is running around in the neighborhood murdering young women. Birdy has a nurse,  Brigitte (Madeleine Hinde), who lives with her sister, Paddy (Suzanna Leigh), who is a reporter. Paddy decides that this church as well as mother and son are worth investigating, but she may get more than she bargained for when she enters this household as a new member of the church ...

Suzanna Leigh and Patrick Magee

This synopsis for Beware My Brethren may make the film sound interesting, but be forewarned that it came very close to making it on to my list of "Films I Never Quite Finished" -- it is that bad and boring. There are decent performances, especially from Ann Todd, the talented British actress reduced to appearing in this dribble, one startling moment (and only one), and a fairly exciting fight scene at the finish. Otherwise this movie is slow, tedious and terrible. This is nothing like the zesty Corruption, which Hartford-Davis helmed four years earlier. One very funny aspect of the picture is that on a couple of occasions it turns downright bizarre, with one of the Brethren -- as they are called -- breaking into song in the middle of the service, only these sequences are presented as if they were pop tunes in a musical! (The songs aren't actually that bad, but they hardly fit in into what is supposed to be a horror movie.) One of the murder scenes, none of which are shot with any elan, seems to have been lit by flashlight! Tony Beckley later made an impression in his last film When a Stranger Calls. 

Verdict: British horror at a very low ebb. *1/2.