The Fiend (1977)

The Fiend is the kind of 1970s thriller that grabs you by the collar in its opening minutes and never quite loosens its grip, blending lurid tabloid shock with an unexpectedly pointed look at moral panic and manipulation. Luigi Zampa keeps the atmosphere sweaty and uneasy, finding a pulpy, street-level London vibe where religious fervor, repression, and violence collide, and the film’s energy carries you through even when it flirts with exploitation. The cast commits hard—especially in the way the story’s damaged young killer and the sect around him feel disturbingly plausible rather than cartoonish—giving the sleaze a sharp edge and a strange sadness. It’s not for everyone (there’s nudity and some unsettling strangulation-focused violence), but if you’re on the fence about gritty, stylish Euro-thrillers with a wicked streak, this one is a bracing, memorable watch.

The Fiend wants to be a grim moral-thriller about religious fanaticism, repression, and a killer who mistakes “purity” for righteousness, and the setup is genuinely unsettling. The problem is that Luigi Zampa stages it with a flat, TV-movie plainness—lots of close-ups, little atmosphere—and after a strong opening it starts to drag, repeating its point without deepening it. Characters who should feel complex end up thin or dull, so the shock elements (including nudity and stranglings) can feel more like grim routine than escalating suspense. If you’re into 70s exploitation-tinged thrillers or culty British-set weirdness, there’s something here, but if you need sharp pacing, rich themes, or stylish direction, this will likely test your patience.