Night Hair Child (AKA What the Peeper Saw) is an amazingly perverse thriller, one that ran into problems with the British censors due to the introduction of the Protection of Children Act in 1978, meaning that certain scenes involving 12-year-old Mark Lester (of Oliver! Fame) and a naked Britt Ekland were trimmed.
I managed to watch the uncut BluRay version of the film and can understand how the film ruffled feathers: it's still controversial stuff, Ekland (then in her late-20s) stripping for the boy, kissing him, and rolling around with him in bed.
Lester plays public schoolboy Marcus, who arrives at his father's home in Spain to the surprise of his new step-mother Elise (Ekland); Marcus tells her that there has been an outbreak of chicken pox at his English boarding school so he has been sent home. As the days go by, Elise realises that Marcus is a wrong 'un (the first clue being when he gropes her breasts) and discovers that, In reality, the boy has been expelled for gross misconduct. Marcus's father Paul (Hardy Krüger) attributes his son's bad behaviour to the fact that his mother died in a terrible accident, but Elise suspects that her step-son knows more about the tragedy than he is letting on.
An eye-opener this film most certainly is, but it's also a very effective thriller, with an amazingly chilling performance from its young star (and a not-so-great turn by Ekland - but she looks great, so it's easy to forgive her less than stellar acting). The pace is decent, the direction stylish, and the plot is engaging throughout, the whole thing wrapping up neatly with a shock ending.
7/10.
I managed to watch the uncut BluRay version of the film and can understand how the film ruffled feathers: it's still controversial stuff, Ekland (then in her late-20s) stripping for the boy, kissing him, and rolling around with him in bed.
Lester plays public schoolboy Marcus, who arrives at his father's home in Spain to the surprise of his new step-mother Elise (Ekland); Marcus tells her that there has been an outbreak of chicken pox at his English boarding school so he has been sent home. As the days go by, Elise realises that Marcus is a wrong 'un (the first clue being when he gropes her breasts) and discovers that, In reality, the boy has been expelled for gross misconduct. Marcus's father Paul (Hardy Krüger) attributes his son's bad behaviour to the fact that his mother died in a terrible accident, but Elise suspects that her step-son knows more about the tragedy than he is letting on.
An eye-opener this film most certainly is, but it's also a very effective thriller, with an amazingly chilling performance from its young star (and a not-so-great turn by Ekland - but she looks great, so it's easy to forgive her less than stellar acting). The pace is decent, the direction stylish, and the plot is engaging throughout, the whole thing wrapping up neatly with a shock ending.
7/10.