The Orchard End Murder

1981

Action / Drama / Thriller

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Plot summary

Charthurst Green, Kent, 1966. Pauline Cox accompanies Mike Robins to a village cricket match in which he is playing, but becomes bored and wanders away. She fetches up at the local railway station, where she is first entertained to tea by the garrulous, hunchbacked station master, then upset by the intrusion of the latter's assistant Ewen, who proceeds to kill a rabbit in her presence. Making her way back to the match, Pauline is waylaid by the simple-minded Ewen as she crosses an apple orchard; when his advances become violent, she tries to fight him off and he strangles her. The station master helps in covering up the murder, burying the corpse in the orchard.

Top cast

Clive Mantle as Ewen
Rik Mayall as Policeman
Alexander John as Radio News Reader
Tracy Hyde as Pauline Cox
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
424.21 MB
1280*682
English 2.0
NR
24 fps
12 hr 48 min
Seeds ...
823.27 MB
1920*1024
English 2.0
NR
24 fps
12 hr 48 min
Seeds 1

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by filmreviewradical 5 / 10

Forbidden fruit...in the Garden of England

Invited to a cricket match in Kent a young woman called Pauline Cox (Tracy Hyde) gets bored with the cricket (as you do) and wanders off through an apple orchard where she encounters a garden gnome collecting railway gatekeeper (Bill Wallis) and a disturbed handyman called Ewen (Clive Mantle). A 1981 film featurette set in Kent in 1966 ,and written and directed by the unprolific Christian Marnham ,it's an example of an English psycho horror film (when they were very popular in cinemas) ,apparently loosely based on a real murder in Kent. Despite this the film (well photographed by Peter Jessop) has a distinct comic edge to it ,and linked to this a symbolic element - forbidden fruit in the orchard ,rape and murder among a mountain of apples ,and all taking place in the 'Garden of England'. And it doesn't stop there ,as we have psycho news coming over the radio from the U. S. A. ,South Africa ,and now Kent (with a psycho and a stockbroker both on the loose). All this - and sexual violence against a character made to look and sound like a glamour model - contrasts wildly with the attractive locations (one ironically named Petham) ,and give this film the slight feeling of a nightmarish satirical fairy tale.
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Reviewed by ChrisN12 7 / 10

Interesting British cinema short

On Thursday 15th July 1982, I was at the Turnpike Lane ABC cinema (sadly since demolished) in North London to watch 'Dead and Buried' with its supporting short 'The Orchard End Murder' and today, exactly 39 years later (to both the date and day of the week) here I am writing a review of the latter of these two films, using technology that did not exist in 1982.

I can remember next to nothing of 'Dead and Buried' but 'The Orchard End Murder' has stuck in my mind for all these years, perhaps because of its British setting. Having missed the very occasional TV screening (which tended to be in the small hours) I was delighted to find out recently that the BFI have deemed the film worthy of restoration and preservation, no mean feat for a film lasting barely 50 minutes. Consequently, I purchased the DVD from them and viewed it last week for the first time in almost 39 years.

There are many bits I remember from 1982 - the killing of the rabbit (which turned out to be more convincing than I thought I had remembered) the murder itself (although I thought it had taken place on grass rather than a huge pile of apples) and in particular, the last two scenes of the film.

The film starts off well with a lot of good tension up to the appearance of Ewen, who at that point appears to be a good guy with a pet rabbit while the stationmaster appears to be creepy at best and a potential murderer at worst.

The sudden and unexpected killing of the rabbit is perhaps too realistic looking and if the director was trying to make a point in linking violence against animals with violence against humans, he still went perhaps a bit too far in this respect.

The murder itself, and the attempted rape that precedes it, is graphic and shocking, and more notably so for the fact that it involves a strangling rather than the more common shootings or stabbings usually seen in films. We are then later treated to an unusual display of necrophilia by the murderer as he attempts to hold on to the dead body with which he has fallen deeply in love with. It is a touching performance by Clive Mantle, but the film's somewhat misogynistic attitude would not sit well today. In fact, the film would probably not even get made in today's 'woke' society.

The film ends a little abruptly, but all the same it is a beautifully photographed film though that evokes a nostalgia for an England of steam trains and village cricket matches, which makes it worth watching.

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