Our Mother's House (1967) US Insert Poster

A kind of suburban Lord of the Flies, where a family of seven children bury their beloved mother in the back garden, and, determined to stay together, support themselves without the authorities suspecting. The arrival of their ne'er do well father brings the precarious situation to a head. Tensions are racked up throughout - in how the children cover their lies, in the simmering sexual undertones with dad Charlie, in the seances with their dead mother, and also in revealing the base cruelty children can exert on each other without a restraining influence.

The second of Clayton's three explorations into children navigating reality and the occult, [the first The Innocents (1961) and the last Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)] it's a tour de force, with understated and utterly convincing performances from the young cast (including Mark Lester, Pamela Franklin and particularly Sarah Nicholls as Gerty - she became better known as Phoebe Nicholls).

Aka: Sinister Spel / A las nueve, cada noche (At nine, each night)

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Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Margaret Brooks, Pamela Franklin, Phoebe Nicholls, Mark Lester, Yootha Joyce (after her powerful cameo in Clayton's 1964 The Pumpkin Eater), Gerald Sim, Edina Ronay.