GamerTab That was an excellent one.

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Wizard-8 Christopher Lee fans may be a little disappointed by the use of their idol in this Hammer movie; he only has about three short scenes in total. But if they can get beyond the lack of Lee, they will probably find the rest of the movie to be pretty entertaining. Now, I will admit that the script has some notable flaws, which are especially apparent when you watch the movie for a second time. For example, why one character dives into a swimming pool to look for a body eventually doesn't make sense, nor how the found body soon after finds its way into the car without the heroine noticing. Such flaws as those do diminish the impact of the movie, along with the somewhat slow pace and somewhat "soft" feel of the entire enterprise. But patient viewers who look behind those flaws will be rewarded by some decent twists toward the end of the movie. And while the movie may be a little slow and soft, it never gets to be boring. It's not the kind of Hammer movie most people associate with the film company, but it is an interesting and decent change of pace.

Leofwine_draca Back in the early '60s, everyone was talking PSYCHO. Hitchcock's masterpiece had revived the genre of the psychological thriller and the imitators were being rushed out to take advantage of all the goodwill. Britain's Hammer Studios were no exception; in the '60s they released about half a dozen low budget, black and white, taut little thrillers that focused on small casts and psychological disturbance. TASTE OF FEAR is one of the first of these films and also one of the best.Although it's a PSYCHO imitator, this film has more in line with the French movie LES DIABOLIQUES. The heroine is a crippled young beauty – played well by Susan Strasberg – who keeps seeing her father's corpse popping up in the most bizarre locations. Despite supernatural undertones there's a logical explanation – someone is trying to drive Strasberg mad. But who, and perhaps more importantly, why? The film answers these questions in an intriguing way and with plenty of twists. Some of the final reveals might be a little implausible but I loved the explanations all the same – and they're pretty hard to guess beforehand. This is a film where people aren't who they seem to be, where red herrings abound, and where good people are bad and bad people just might be good. Jimmy Sangster's script is strong, well paced and expertly focused.The small cast all put in grand performances. There are a couple of dodgy accents – Christopher Lee's French accent is weak, as is Strasberg's British – but these can be ignored as the subtle acting is well portrayed. Ronald Lewis excels as the helpful chauffeur and Ann Todd is also fine as the sinister stepmother. Christopher Lee is also on hand as a somewhat dubious character and he has a ball with it. TASTE OF FEAR is only a little film but it's a little film done well. If you like good mysteries and plenty of suspense then you could do a lot worse than this movie.

lemon_magic Hammer made its name with colorful horror movies, but this early black-and-white classic shows that their stable of creative talent had some other tricks up their collective sleeves. Writer Sangster and director Roth proved that they could take some elements of "Gaslight" and "Le Diaboliques" and come up with a tight little suspense thriller that manages some excellent twists and turns.I've watched a bunch of movies like this one, and was basically able to determine early on what was going to have to happen for the movie to have a "happy" ending where the good guys win (because that was still a requirement back then).But the actors were so good and the scenes so well staged and managed that it was still great fun to see the plot events unfold. And I will admit - the movie did catch me by surprise a couple of times. That's pretty impressive for a screenplay that's over 50 years old!Even better, the movie manages to play reasonably fair with the audience - there was only one "oh sure" element in the plot *SPOILER ALERT* which asks me to believe that a person could jump from a car which was falling off a cliff into the ocean and still be OK; I hardly think so! *END SPOILER ALERT*I especially liked the actor who played the chauffeur - handsome in an interesting way, but with an enigmatic hardness to him. Is he a good guy, or is he in on whatever is going on? When you find out, you'll be happy.Really,really liked this film. Not great art but Hammer never aspired to "Art"; they just wanted to thrill their audiences. This film is easily one of their best.

christopher-underwood I thought I had seen all of the Hammer horrors but this was my first viewing of this little gem. I suppose it is a suspense thriller rather than horror but certainly has it's moments and even made me jump from my seat at one point. With a nod to Les Diaboliques, which was clearly an influence and inevitably to Hitchcock, who's own Psycho came out the same year and probably helped bury this film, this is nevertheless a most impressive black and white gem. Susan Strasberg and Ann Todd are excellent, helped by the largely good dialogue, but I was not always happy with Ronald Lewis and very disappointed with the Christopher Lee cameo, but then was he ever quite a s good as he thought he was?! Sacrilege, I know but sometimes I do wonder about his performances and to be honest if he couldn't do a convincing French accent then don't bother. Anyway, my personal gripe over, the film is still highly recommended.