Hammer Horror is often associated with ornate and sexy takes on classic Universal monsters made in vivid color, but their best films were shot in Black & White. My favorite, a bank Thriller starring Peter Cushing, is coming up next month. The next two on the list are Gothic gaslight shockers written by Jimmy Sangster. He has a dozen titles in the Top 1000, including Horror of Dracula. Only Richard Matheson (Duel, The Devil Rides Out) is more successfully prolific. Taste of Fear is an important film for me because I’d never heard of it until I started looking for lists of recommendations. The discovery put me on a path with the genre I’ve been exploring ever since.
Some reviews admire the clever construction and the unpredictability. Most compare it to Gaslight and Diabolique, but would say this is a film that’s truly scary. And it is. Gaslight films often center around a woman in a “fragile” state, and the one here is in a wheelchair, which makes her appear to be easy to frighten. She is often pitied… and just as often underestimated. The suspense is a slow escalation done in a Gothic style, but this increases the panic when you can sense something scary is about to happen, making those moments highly effective.
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