DEMONS OF THE MIND (1971)
Starring Patrick Magee and Michael Hordern
One of the last great Hammer Films releases, this dark, unnerving and wonderfully gothic pic is about a 19th-century baron (Robert Hardy) who imprisons his son and daughter, convinced that they're possessed by (you guessed it) the "Demons of the Mind."
Turns out the baron is quite mad himself—and he isn't getting much help from a crazy psychiatrist (Magee) who has been stripped of his license to practice. Meanwhile, someone's escaping the castle every night to kill the village girls, sprinkling their corpses with rose petals. It's the sort of the thing that happens a lot in gothic fear flicks.
Rich photographed and well-acted, "Demons of the Mind" is the best Hammer film of the 1970s. It's a little too serious for mainstream audiences, but sick intellectuals should get a kick out of it.
Sykes also directed "To the Devil a Daughter," then made a complete about-face in the spiritual message he was delivering by helming the church-approved adaptation of the Gospel, "Jesus," in 1979. A little trivia for "A Clockwork Orange" fans: Both Magee and Gillian Hills (who plays the daughter in this flick) were in "Clockwork."