This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Ingrid (May Britt, a long way from Sweden) lives on a small farm with her Uncle (Cameron Mitchell) in a small coastal California town. The town gets turned upside down when a small child is murdered and then a series of rapes take place. Ingrid suspects it is the work of local butcher Frankie (William Gray Espy) and tells the sheriff (Aldo Ray) her suspicions. Naturally, she soon becomes the attacker's latest prey. Chances are you will figure out this psychological horror flick before the film's revelation, but that doesn't deter from this interesting film by Herb Freed (GRADUATION DAY). Britt, the former Mrs. Sammy Davis, Jr., looks pretty rough but having her in this role is pretty clever casting for the stranger in a strange town. The film benefits from the small town location shooting, reminding me a bit of THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (1976). Perhaps the best element of the film is a wonderful score by Pino Donaggio. It really adds to the film's final haunting shot. It should be noted the end credits have a 1975 copyright date for both the film and the score.

More than one reviewer has likened this film to Polanski's classic "Repulsion". That is true after a fashion, but "Haunts" begins with the pretence to being a thriller or even a slasher film; there is a psychopath on the loose who is raping and murdering women in small town USA. This town is so small in fact that although it has a sheriff it appears not to have even one detective, yet bizarrely it sports its own TV station.The heroine is Ingrid, who is both a stunning blonde and an old maid. There is a false lead or two, but the bad guy is tracked down by the sheriff who does a fair job of policing, when he isn't throwing up after overindulgence in alcohol or slapping the ne'er do well who has put his daughter in the club. Or perhaps that should be sheriffing? What happens next you will have to discover for yourself, dear reader, but if you can work this one out there is a job waiting for you at Oxford University, explaining to next year's intake how to crack Fermat's Last Theorem.

This was a real chore to watch. I'm not exaggerating when I say that at least thirty minutes can be cut off this clunker without missing any plot lines whatsoever. May Britt plays Ingrid, the most unlikeable main character in movie history. Not only is she the coldest fish on earth but she's also a fierce man-hater. The small town she lives in has been plagued with murders committed by a scissor wielding madman. This makes Ingrid even more unbearable to be around as every breathing man she comes into contact with is automatically trying to rape her. Number one on her list is the town rowdy Frankie who also works as the butcher in the local market when he's not having a very inappropriate relationship with the sheriff's seventeen year old daughter. This would be fine had the man playing Frankie not appear to be in his late thirties at least. What's more absurd is that Ingrid constantly refers to him as "that boy". Ingrid lives alone (no surprise there) on a farm but is helped on occasion by her Uncle Carl played by B-movie king Cameron Mitchell. Did I mention that she also has hallucinations too? Usually the incoherent flashbacks come over her every few seconds. Rubbing a goat, flashback, feeling a bed sheet, flashback, someone closes a door, flashback. Ingrid comes upon a corpse left on her property and that pushes her off the mental edge she was teetering on to begin with. The ending is quite bizarre as Ingrid's fate as well as the relationship between her uncle and her mother are slapped across you face like a dead salmon.I couldn't care less what happened to Ingrid because her performance was as dead as the person she portrays. We are lead to believe that she was raised in this small California coastal town yet her thick accent begs to differ. This is explained near the end as the time she spent at "a European school up the coast". What? Did they suck the life force from her too? Let's hope Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory is better.

This has a Bergmanesque spareness to it that is at times OK. The plot is terribly convoluted and confusing. I don't even know if we have closure at the end. Just what does it all mean? I remember May Britt being married to Sammy Davis, Jr. She of the Scandanavian roots and the freckles. In here she is a virgin queen. She is so frumpy and cold, it's hard to feel for her. Obviously, she deserves to live as she wishes, but she has been so traumatized that we can't get close to her. In repulsion, we can't take our eyes off the girl. When Britt leaves a scene, she is pretty forgettable. There is a pretty good give and take. Aldo Ray is pretty believable in his intense wishes to solve the case. He has feelings for this woman and wants to help her out. She, like so many in horror movies, feels she can be hysterical one moment and totally independent in the next. There are lots of layers and that's fun. I didn't move away from this movie. I have the same collection mentioned by other reviewers. If they had a psychological drama box, this might fit in nicely. Anyway, as a make my way through these B and C movies, I don't see them as a total waste of time. I had never seen May Britt act before. She had some talent, but it wasn't exposed here.