No Way Out

PG rated and at one time distributed by the infamous Bryanston Distributing Company (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Jean-Marie Pélissié’s only film, The House that Cried Murder — its original title — is an efficient psychological thriller-chiller, holding a gradually heightening sinister tone right up to the EC Horror comic sting-in-the-tail ending.

Sweethearts David (Arthur Roberts) and Barbara (Robin Strasser) plan to tie the knot, with highly-strung and only-child Barbara calling the shots. She’s even had built an amazing modern, angled house (the actual property's archtectural style is reminiscent of the late Roland Jaffe), set in the centre of a country meadow; a house specifically designed to mirror Barbara’s personality. Barbara’s father (a very charismatic John Beal), who employs David, is strictly against the wedding, considering David an untrustworthy individual. His hunch is proved right when, on their very wedding day, Barbara catches David in the arms of former paramour Helen (Iva Jean Saraceni). A hysterical Barbara slashes David’s arms with a pair of scissors and covered in his blood, flees from the wedding reception in her car — disappearing without trace.

Amazed, David still finds himself employed at the father-in-law’s firm, and has Helen move in with him. Almost immediately the couple start receiving annonymous phone calls — a female-voiced ‘answering service’ — and whilst David is out at work, a package arrives containing a replica of Barbara’s wedding dress. Soon, the pair starts being plagued by nightmares featuring Barbara, and when Helen finds a severed chicken head on her pillow, she leaves in hysterics. That night, with David returning home to find an empty house, the ‘answering service’ calls, intimating that David should take a trip to Barbara’s specially built house. Upon arriving at the murky building, he not only finds his father-in-law waiting for him, but what appears to be a deceased Barbara, prostrate in a coffin, adorned in her bloodied wedding dress…but is she really dead?