Frightmare

Frightmare (also known as Cover Up and Once Upon a Frightmare) is a 1974 British horror slasher film directed and produced by Pete Walker, written by David McGillivray and starring Rupert Davies and Sheila Keith. The story focuses around Dorothy and Edmund Yates, who have recently been released from a mental asylum, and is one of Pete Walker's most notable films. Plot Dorothy Yates lives with her husband Edmund in an isolated farmhouse in Surrey. They have just been released from a mental institution to which they were committed in 1957 after it was found Dorothy was a cannibal who killed and partially ate at least six people. Jackie, Edmund's daughter by previous marriage, lives in London but secretly visits her dad and stepmum at night to bring her parcels containing animal brain, thereby implicitly feigning to commit murders for her so as to contain Dorothy's murderous urges. Now, it seems as if Dorothy has had a severe relapse. She secretly lures lonely young people to her home, promising tea and a tarot card reading, only with the sessions ending with a violent murder and "feast". At the same time, Jackie tries to control her 15-year-old half-sister Debbie, Dorothy's actual daughter that she and Edmund had shortly before being committed to the asylum. Debbie has been recently thrown out of the orphanage. She now stays with Jackie and rides with her boyfriend Alec, head of a violent biker gang. Debbie incites Alec to start a fight with a barman in one of London's hip nightclubs because he denied her liquor due to her being underage. When they get thrown out, the bike gang later ambush and assault the barman with a chain but leave when spotted. Debbie, however, decides to stay behind and hides the body in the trunk of a car before the police arrive. When Jackie berates Debbie for coming home late, they have a severe argument in which Debbie in turn asks where Jackie goes at night. It is later revealed that her cannibalism can be understood as an attempt to cope with a childhood trauma when she found out that she had eaten parts of her pet rabbit that her parents had cooked and served as dinner. Although her husband Edmund was convicted, it is later revealed that he only faked his dementia in order to remain with his wife. He is a truly devoted husband who loves his wife dearly and does not take part in the actual acts of murder in 1957 and in the present, only helping in covering them up.