Neither The Sea Nor The Sand [1972] [DVD]

Here's an oddity. As with many of Odeon's laudable "Best Of British Collection" , the fact that this little-seen film is available on DVD at all makes up for the picture quality, which in this case tends to deteriorate as it goes along. Even so, this 'bare-bones' release is still a marked improvement on the 1979 rental VHS and it shouldn't distract too much from the film itself, especially for anybody seeing this for the first time.

In the film's favour are its dismal and genuinely unsettling atmosphere, its haunting musical score and what might be Susan Hampshire's finest performance on celluloid (especially in the 'Scottish beach scenes' from which the cover image is taken.) By way of contrast, certain other cast members must have been left picking splinters from their teeth well into 1973 and the film is further let down by a narrative that's something of a structural mess. It feels as though quite a few scenes might have been lopped out at the editing stage, in true "Wicker Man" style.

Speaking of which, this DVD still classes the film as a horror, which might raise the hopes of genre fans a touch too high: it's primarily a glum, contemporary love story that goes wrong in a ghastly way, and while there's certainly a zombie present, devotees of other Tigon films available on DVD could be disappointed. The horror, where it comes, is disturbingly real. It's emotional as well as physical horror that the audience is asked to imagine, and that's another of the film's strengths.

All in all, it's a very welcome addition to Odeon's range; one for the connoisseurs and the curious.

!!!WARNING.CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!

Anna Robinson(Susan Hampshire) is on holiday in the Channel Islands, escaping from a loveless marriage and trying to make sense of her life. There she meets tall, handsome pilot Hugh Dabernon(Michael Petrovitch) and immediately falls head over heels in love. With Hugh's only surviving family member, his brother George(Frank Finlay), being negative towards their relationship, the couple elope to Scotland. However, tragedy strikes when Hugh collapses whilst running across the beach. The local Doctor pronouncing him dead gives a heart defect as the cause of death. That night, Hugh returns to Anna. It seems he took his vow to never leave her very seriously indeed. Anna immediatly returns to Jersey with Hugh, but finds that being in love with a walking corpse can have serious drawbacks....
I find this film, finally getting a decent dvd release through Odeon Entertainment, to be rather wonderful. It has a rather stately pace to it, in fact there are periods when nothing much happens at all, but accept it for what it is, a real mood piece dripping with doom laden atmosphere, and you will find much to enjoy.
Starting off as a love story, the film mutates into both a straightforward ghost story and a variation on 'The Monkey's Paw' during its running time. Not very horrifying, although there are a couple of disturbing scenes as Hugh starts to decay, it never drags thanks to some stunning cinematography and a widly erratic music score, perfect as a companion piece for the schizophrenic proceedings onscreen. The two leads are a bit bland at times, although this could be explained by Anna trying to grieve, and Hugh being rather dead. Anyway, Finlay as the overly mannered, fussy and sexually repressed George is a big compensation, stealing every scene that he is in. The late Michael Craze also impresses as Hugh's pal Collie.
I thought that the picture and audio quality were excellent for a film of its age. Fans of the exploitation films of Tony Tenser and Tigon films might be dissappointed though, as this is far from a titillating piece of schlock, despite a couple of sex scenes. It's not that kind of film. Finally, just to add some bizarre icing on the cake, the scriptwriter for Neither The Sea Nor The Sand is none other than TV-AM Newsreader Gordon Honeycombe.
So, an excellent release for a much neglected slice of atmospheric Brit horror, and one I would highly recommend to the curious. 5 out of 5.

Story about a love that transcends death.
Beautfully filmed. (The picture quality was fine on my copy).
Saw it on tv once and never forgot it. I found it even better than I remembered.
Basically, the story is: a married woman goes on holiday alone to escape from a loveless marriage and meets and falls in love with an attractive young man, who tragically dies, and she cannot accept it and begs him to come back to her, and his love for her somehow transcends death; which is fine to begin with, but then she decides she wants to be free and probably wishes she hadn't got him back, or at least not in the way it turned out, which is the tragedy of the story.

Should be avoided by all those whose idea of a 'good' movie is constant shouting, noise, car chases and guns blazing!

Susan Hampshire and Michael Petrovitch as the main leads are brilliant in their portrayal of the doomed lovers and appear utterly believable as a couple truly in love.

ps. Doctor Who fans may be interested to note that the movie features Michael Craze, who played companion Ben in the Hartnell/Troughton era.