Wow! Such a good movie.

The greatest movie ever!

Some things I liked some I did not.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This is an absolute gem, and why this masterful chiller remains so obscure is beyond me! 'Unmann Wittering & Zigo' is masterfully directed by John Mackenzie, with truly chilling performances from a sublime young cast and yet another stand-out performance from the ever-genius David Hemmings. This profoundly disturbing film can sit quite uncomfortably alongside 'village of the damned' & 'the wicker man' as one of British cinema's all-time great horror films. A razor-edged shocker with a palpably disturbing atmosphere; as this genuinely creepy film unfolds, director, Mackenzie ratchets up the penetrating unease with consummate skill; including a number of genuinely terrifying sequences (The ICA or NFT really should give this masterpiece a screening) Highly recommended.

John Mackenzie, the director of this film, passed away last month. He is probably best remembered for the sublime 1980 gangster drama 'The Long Good Friday' with Bob Hoskins. 'Unman, Wittering & Zigo' ( 1971 ) is not as well known, but just as gripping. I first saw it on B.B.C.-2 one Sunday night sometime around the late '70's, and it frightened the life out of me. I was due back at school the next day, and it was pretty rough, with a minority in my class thinking they had the God-given right to do as little work as possible and laugh at those wishing to get good grades. I was fearful they might start copying the boys in this movie.Adapted by Simon Raven from a radio play by Giles Cooper, the story begins with the death of a teacher - Mr.Pelham - who falls from a cliff. The coroners' verdict is accidental death. A replacement arrives at Chantry boarding school for boys - the idealistic 'John Ebony' ( David Hemmings ). He finds class Lower Five B to be arrogant, insufferable, yet quick-witted. One of their number, Wittering ( Colin Barrie ), is forever being picked on. They claim to have murdered Pelham, and will do the same to him unless he co-operates. The boys have devised what they call a 'modus operandi' - in return for his life, he must fake exam results and pass bets to the bookie. When Ebony tries to tell the headmaster ( Douglas Wilmer ), he realises he has no proof of what the boys are doing, and hands in his notice. Under the terms of his contract, he must stay until the end of term, so he decides to try and discover who the gang's ringleader is. The 'modus operandi' ends. Enraged, Lower Five B punish him by tormenting his attractive wife Silvia ( Carolyn Seymour )...Strongly reminiscent of Lindsay Anderson's 'If...' ( 1968 ), this darkly comic film has not been on television in years nor available on D.V.D. or Blu-Ray. It deserves to be better known. The cabal of Lower Five B are thoroughly evil, basically Malcolm McDowell's 'A Clockwork Orange' gang in blazers. Ebony is so terrified of them he even has a weird nightmare in which he is stripped naked in a forest and carried aloft. But the scene which disturbs the most is Silvia trapped by a gym, and the boys calmly announcing their intention to gang-bang her.The cast are good, particularly Hemmings - who also produced - and Seymour. Amongst the boys are Michael Kitchen, Tom Owen ( son of Bill ), Michael Cashman, and James Wardroper. Other familiar faces are Tony Haygarth, Barbara Lott, Donald Gee, and Hamilton Dyce.The revelation at the end may strike some as contrived, but I have noticed that teenage gangs often tend to be led by the unlikeliest candidates, so maybe its not so contrived after all.'Zigo', incidentally, does not appear even though his name is in the title. We are told he is in Jamaica recuperating from an illness. Being amongst this lot would make anyone sick. In an amusing touch, he is listed in the closing credits as 'Zigo...Absent'!

Unman, Wittering and Zigo is largely unknown little film, and that isn't really surprising considering that it's really rather odd. It's not a bad film, however, and certainly is ripe for rediscovery. The film is along the same lines as Lindsay Anderson's 1968 masterpiece "If..." as it focuses on a rebellious group of boys at a posh school. The film is based on a play by Giles Cooper and that is always evident as we focus on just a handful of small locations and everything is centred on the main plot line. We focus on John Ebony, a young and idealistic teacher who takes a job an English school and is put in charge of a class of boys, leaving his wife at home in the cottage provided for them. He is given the job because of a tragic accident which resulted in the previous teacher of the class falling off a cliff to his death. It's not long before it becomes apparent that the class is not made up of 'normal' boys, and this becomes even more the case when the new teacher is told by the boys that they murdered the old one! John soon starts to fear for his life...The best thing about this film is the way it's plotted. We are given the mystery on a plate at the start of the film and the rest of it focuses on working out whether or not what the boys told their teacher is true. Director John Mackenzie skilfully handles the main plot theme and Unman, Wittering and Zigo becomes more thrilling with every turn. The plot is relaxed in the way that it plays out, but the director keeps things interesting by ensuring that the mystery is always intriguing and the tension just bubbles beneath the surface. The film benefits from an excellent ensemble cast which is lead by the great David Hemmings who is backed up by a good cast of youngsters. The atmosphere in this film is great and is partly created by the way that the boys interact with one another. One of the most striking things about this film is the way that they talk in unison and that in itself helps to build up a feeling of dread emanating from how it shows us what the central character is up against. Overall, Unman, Wittering and Zigo may be slightly lacking in some areas (the ending is not particularly strong and the story sometimes lacks direction) but these are not big faults in what is otherwise an excellent slice of cult cinema!

A forgotten gem, this is one of the earliest films John Mackenzie directed after a few years working in television, before he returned to television in time to shoot some of the finest Play For Todays of the 1970s. And along with The Long Good Friday and Ruby this is Mackenzie finest achievement in the cinema. A stunning thriller, this is an assured, efficient filming of a chilly concept. David Hemmings is excellently vulnerable in the lead, the perfect Hitchcockian hero, believed by nobody apart from the viewer. The class of boys includes a young Michael Kitchen, and there's Tony haygarth as a world weary colleague whose lack of joie de vivre begins to corrupt Hemmings as much as his class do.The most frightening sequence is the shocking persecution of the wife in the squash courts, a superbly staged scene that is quite a jaw-dropper considering the age of the film. In fact it is more the quaint English setting that adds the real shyock to the scene. It is interesting to compare this film with two other public school movies of the era, inevitably Lindsay Anderson's If....but more significantly the brilliant Walk A Crooked Pathwhich similarly portrays the public school boys as corrupt, ruthless and cold blooded, brilliantly adept at money making, no matter how immorally, and trained to view the world with a haughty authority.Unman Wittering And Zigo is a truly gripping thriller, and proves Mackenzie is a great thriller maker as he illustrated in pieces like Dennis Potter's Double Dare and The Long Good Friday even more vividly.