Ann Rogers arrives home and on the stairway passes a man on the communal stairway . When she arrives at the front door of her flat she sees a young womans body sprawled next door . The next day on her way to work she passes a jewllers and glancing through the window she recognises the man inside as the man she saw in the stairwell . He too regognises her and gives chase
Along with A Coffin For The Bride this is the best regarded episode of the THRILLER series but in my opinion it's much more outstanding and shows what can be done with a very small budget in creating terror . It says a lot about British television in the 1970s when someone comes up with disposable television and yet it contains much more thrills than you'd see in a hundred Hollywood horror movies in the 21st century . I vaguely remember this episode when it was repeated in the early 1980s but even then I didn't appreciate how well everything was done until seeing it again today . The simple premise of a woman being alone and stalked in a large office building might sound little more than efficient on paper but the way it plays out on screen and is developed is absolutely startling . Much of this is down to the casting of Robert Land as the enigmatic murder called simply The Man who gives the audience an air of spine chilling creepiness just by looking at him
Some things don't work all together successfully . Like so many other British anthology series the lead character Ann Rogers just happens to be American which screams " Please broadcast this show on American television " and lets not forget that the this was broadcast in America complete with specially shot title sequences which also accounts for the rather uncommon running time of 74 minutes which means episodes aren't quite padded but neither were they as streamlined as they could have been so you've got a slightly halfway house . There's also perhaps a feeling the ending should have been ambiguous where the audience can decide for themselves if Ann has died or survived but never the less this a very tense suspense laden thriller that probably deserved to have been a cinema production
Along with A Coffin For The Bride this is the best regarded episode of the THRILLER series but in my opinion it's much more outstanding and shows what can be done with a very small budget in creating terror . It says a lot about British television in the 1970s when someone comes up with disposable television and yet it contains much more thrills than you'd see in a hundred Hollywood horror movies in the 21st century . I vaguely remember this episode when it was repeated in the early 1980s but even then I didn't appreciate how well everything was done until seeing it again today . The simple premise of a woman being alone and stalked in a large office building might sound little more than efficient on paper but the way it plays out on screen and is developed is absolutely startling . Much of this is down to the casting of Robert Land as the enigmatic murder called simply The Man who gives the audience an air of spine chilling creepiness just by looking at him
Some things don't work all together successfully . Like so many other British anthology series the lead character Ann Rogers just happens to be American which screams " Please broadcast this show on American television " and lets not forget that the this was broadcast in America complete with specially shot title sequences which also accounts for the rather uncommon running time of 74 minutes which means episodes aren't quite padded but neither were they as streamlined as they could have been so you've got a slightly halfway house . There's also perhaps a feeling the ending should have been ambiguous where the audience can decide for themselves if Ann has died or survived but never the less this a very tense suspense laden thriller that probably deserved to have been a cinema production
