159) The Attic (1980)

"I've been drowning most of my life. I keep asking myself how many times how many times do I have to go under before somebody will throw me a line. The truth is nobody ever throws you one. You save yourself."

Director

George Edwards

Cast

Carrie Snodgress - Louise Elmore

Ray Milland - Wendell

Ruth Cox - Emily

Frances Bay - Librarian 

I mentioned the 1980 psychological horror drama "The Attic" in my commentary on the 1986 horror movie "Crawlspace." Both films were packaged together on DVD distributed from MGM titled "Midnight Movies Double Feature." 

The titles of these movies initially caught my attention. With "The Attic" I anticipated something cringy, dark, dusty and dank. That's generally how attics are. They're generally a go-to spot for ghosts. Attics always seem to have their customary ghost for some reason. I don't know what's up there in the attic that ghosts love so much. Maybe ghosts in the attic are a metaphor for our own personal forgotten history that somehow still survives up there in our attics? Otherwise, it sounds like an insanely boring afterlife if some of us are doomed to hang out in someone's attic for decades or, maybe, centuries. I wonder if any souls spend their afterlife on the sidelines of NFL games, or at Disneyland? 

Anyways, attics are spaces where people often keep old mementos of their past that age with intensity and fall apart just like we do. 

As for the movie, the attic doesn't play any significant part in the story until the final act. It's barely even alluded to in the story. 

In this movie, Carrie Snodgress plays a lonely, single and deeply depressed librarian named Louise. She lives with her verbally abusive, self-centered, wheelchair bound wealthy father, Wendell (Ray Milland) somewhere out in Wichita. 

After 19 years, she remains hopeful that her fiancé, Robert, will return as he left her standing at the altar on their wedding day. Regardless, her true emotions start the story off as we see her attempting suicide by slitting her wrists while watching old films of herself and Robert at the start of the movie.

Louise has been working as a librarian for several years, and one day suffers a nervous breakdown. During this breakdown, she starts a fire inside the library. Fortunately, the damage is minimal.

Afterwards, Louise decides it's best to resign from her job. She agrees to train her replacement, Emily (Ruth Cox) before officially leaving. 

She and Emily become friends, especially as Emily feels much sympathy for Louise's difficulties with her father. Emily has her own issues with her domineering mother.

Meanwhile, Louise has fantasies of her father falling over and dying. 

One evening, she goes to see a movie by herself. While there, a sailor named Richard hits on her, and then takes her back to his hotel room. Of course, Wendell is upset Louise has been gone all night. Regardless, the day after her one-night stand, she and Emily go out shopping.  

During their outing, they walk past a pet shop where Louise takes a liking to a chimpanzee that's for sale. 

Emily decides to purchase the chimp later on and present it to Louise as a gift. 

Louise is thrilled with her new pet, which she names Dickie. 

Carrie Snodgress and Ray Milland in "The Attic."

Wendell, however, is disgusted by the animal and demands it be taken out of the house. Louise doesn't listen to him and keeps the chimp upstairs in her bedroom. Wendell, by the way, hasn't been able to go upstairs in years and stays on the ground floor of the house. That's what he leads Louise to believe, anyways. 

As the two ladies spend time together, Emily confides that she has a boyfriend who moved out to California. She doesn't want to move out of Kansas to be with him as he is trying to get her to out there, and hopefully marry her.

So, she invites Louise to her parents' house for dinner to meet her mom, who constantly nags Emily's little brother. During and after the meal, Louise gets an idea of how domineering Emily's mother is. So, for Emily's sake, Louise decides to make an impression on her mom. 

The following day, the library staff hold a party for Louise's last day. She grateful, and just before she leaves, she advises Emily not to let once in a lifetime opportunities pass her by. 

When Louise returns home, Dickie is missing. Her dad claims he ran away. Louise becomes frantic as Dickie is nowhere to be found. 

The next day, she buys Emily a plane ticket to California as a gift and mails it to her at the library, 

Emily jumps at the opportunity and heads to the West Coast right away. She calls Louise from the airport to thank her. Now, Louise is alone with her father. There's no job to escape to each day, nor friend to confide in.

Later, Louise takes her father on their regular walk at the park. 

When his wheelchair accidentally tips over, Wendall stands up revealing he never needed a wheelchair. This appalling revelation leads to other secrets surfacing, leading Louise to see what her father has hidden in their attic. 

The attic doesn't play any role in the story until the very end. Only the attic key is show once without explanation, but that's it. Louise, though, never ventures up there until the very end. She barely even manifests any curiosity about the attic.

This movie is labeled as a psychological horror movie. You might be asking yourself while reading this synopsis, "where's the horror?" The psychological part is definitely there but the horror is extremely subtle. The audience really has to consider what takes place inside Louise to see any semblance of horror. 

It's frightening to consider ourselves in Louise's position. Otherwise, "The Attic" is much more of a psychological drama than an actual horror movie. I'm really stretching the definition of a horror movie here, which is a film intended to arouse fear, dread, shock - call it what you will - in an audience.

The story opens with cries of despair, heartache and slit wrists.

So, this movie does have some dark elements, but dark doesn't necessarily mean horror. A depressing heart wrenching scene can be dark. Disney's 1985 film "Return to Oz" is dark and has some freaky imagery. It's certainly not horror. I think "The Attic" wants to be more traumatic than fright inducing but ends up a depressing drama. In that regard, it's a decent enough story.  

Dickie, the goofy chimpanzee along with the soft songs playing throughout the film take away any trepidation the story might be trying to convey. The soundtrack, with music sung by Kelly Garrett, is completely unnecessary, distracting, and confusing. Again, is this a drama or a horror flick? I don't need Garrett's songs to know how the protagonist is feeling, nor to tell me how I'm supposed to feel.

This movie has all the makings of a Friday night made-for-TV horror that's just too timid and holds back a lot. 

Garrett, by the way, can also be heard on the soundtrack to the 1973 horror film "House of Terror."

I did become invested a bit in Louise's situations. Snodgress does portray a tragic character impressively well. The sadness comes through her mannerisms and temperament. On top of that, her unsympathetic father wants her to wait on him while constantly berating her. Louise's outlet is her new friend, Emily, and a chimp. I think as Louise grows older since being dumped at the altar 19 years ago, her mind begins to snap as she finally, though unwillingly, realizes her old fiancé is never coming back. Old age is approaching, and her loneliness is clearly going nowhere. Once Emily takes off for California, and becomes engaged, it's just Louise and her demeaning father. It tears her down more and more as the story progresses. It's a depressing story with no happy ending. 

In the end, she's trapped (literally) in the dusty confines of her own sad reality mixed with bitter memories. 

Some of the dialogue is entertaining.

In one scene when Emily and Louise are talking about their respective parents, Louise says, "I guess emasculation is some mothers' instinct. And some fathers too."

"You can't fight it," Emily says.

"Oh. the hell you can't."  

Snodgress may be best remembered for the 1970 comedic drama "Diary of a Mad Housewife" for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for best actress.

In that film, she plays the wife to an emotionally abusive and controlling husband. 

The similar premise plays out here, where Snodgress lives with her emotionally abusive and controlling father. 

Marjorie Eaton, who plays Mrs. Fowler, also stars in "The Empire Strikes Back" which was also released in 1980. Whom did she play, you must be wondering. Get this! She plays the Emperor, who's voiced by Clive Revill. 

And actress Frances Bay, who has a small role in the movie, has been seen in many well-known movies such as "The Karate Kid," and "Happy Gilmore," as well as a ton of television shows. She's also in some noteworthy horror flicks such as "Arachnophobia," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "Single White Female," and my personal favorite, "In the Mouth of Madness." 

Ray Milland is a veteran actor, whose performance here is enough to make the audience dislike his character Wendell without overdoing it. 

There's a theme of living the looming shadow of over-dominating parents who are difficult to please or impress. In that case, "The Attic" accomplishes what it sets out to do, with much less horror than it lets on. The film is definitely a psychological story that passes thanks to Snodgress and Milland's performances. I think the horror aspects in the movie flew past me. 

I'm including horror movie trivia into my posts now! That's fun, right? Either way, there it is. The answer will be in my next post...

In "The Exorcist" (1973) what is Max Von Sydow's character Fr. Merrin's first name? 

*Answer to the question from my last post, "Cocaine Bear" = Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton