1974, UK
Alternative title: The Blood Virgin
Made the same year as Larraz’s better-known Vampyres, Symptoms follows in the footsteps of Altman’s Images and Polanski’s Repulsion in its intense, brooding study of a young woman teetering on the edge of sanity.
Angela Pleasence (daughter of Donald) turns in an amazing performance as Helen Ramsey, an odd-looking girl whose social ineptitude makes her seem like a shut-in child trying to impress the world of adults around her.
Helen invites a friend out to her isolated, rarely visited country manor and everything seems idyllic but for the strange sense of foreboding reflected in Helen’s worried stare.
She seems normal enough until she enters the house, then it’s as though something ‘sets in’ – everything becomes portentous.
Helen changes dramatically when she comes into the realm of her family home. It is as though she passes through a boundary into unreality.
Like Cathryn in Images, Helen has an isolated house that acts as a very physical counterpart to her madness, and her visiting friend will soon experience the extent of Helen’s madness first-hand.
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