- A psychiatrist and his wife move into a quaint coastal town only to discover that a sinister presence is lurking there.
- The little coastal town of Clark's Harbor seems like the perfect place for psychiatrist Brad Russell and his wife to get a little peace and spend more time with each other. But the locals don't seem very friendly and, every time a storm rolls in, another mysterious death occurs... Could an ancient Indian legend of ghostly tribes and human sacrifice have anything to do with it?—<rosshorsley@yahoo.com>
- Awakening alone a young boy dressed in a night shirt, suggestive of mid twentieth century era, begins looking through the house for his grandparents. His search eventually leads him to the beach where he finds them deceased, with only their heads protruding above the sand. At this point the introductory credits roll and then the scene returns to the modern day with a psychiatrist and his wife making a getaway from the big city. They don't realize it but getting away from Seattle to Devil's Elbow is jumping from the frying pan into the fire. They arrive in town and contact the local constabulary where they are to pick up the keys for their rental property. They are rejected, due to a lack of communication and the disappearance of a fisherman, but sent to a quaint inn. After registering they take a small walk where the psychiatrist sees and talks to the father of one of his former patients. They eventually get around to discussing the son and the father says it's a miracle but the child is now normal. They are interrupted by klaxon blasts from a boat pulling another boat into the harbor. The fisherman's boat but he's not on it. They bring up the net and dump it to find the fisherman. Fishwife goes into hysterics, "they got him, they got my husband, and they'll get us too". Now the film goes into character development and eventually the psychiatrist and wife get into their property (the house the original boy and his grandparents lived in). Walking along the beach they encounter the crazy townie who relates the history of Devil's Elbow. There were indian's there, with a cult "Storm Dancers" who used to kill their victims by burying them up to the neck in the sand and letting the tide finish the job. "You know who sits at the Devil's Elbow? Death!" said crazy relates to the people. The storms being central to the entire plot begins to reveal a pattern of at least one death of newcomer to town per storm. Enjoying cocktails with the psychiatric patient boy's parents, our psychiatrist and wife are talking about the community and how clannish the locals are. They are interrupted by a knock at the door and the fishwife says "they got my husband and they'll get us too" dialog again and then runs off into the storm. The psychiatrist says you can expect grief from someone who just lost a loved one but that lady is terrified. She's found the next day hanged in the backyard of the psyche boy's house. At this point another pattern comes out that the psyche boy likes to go out at night into the storms. He sees ghost indians on the beach. His sister accompanies him but she doesn't see the ghostly apparitions. The psychiatrist eventually questions him and finds out that the storms are what has provided the gestalt allowing recovery from whatever it was that fevered his mind originally. Epiphany occurs and the psychiatrist realizes if the storms can calm the psyche boys brain why not agitate another's brain? He rushes to the constabulary to share his findings. But the sherriff was out and not known when to be expected back. The psychiatrist and wife were babysitting the psyche boy and his sister and the kids escape. The psychiatrist has to leave the constabulary and try to find the kids. He, the dad, and a deputy find the kids on the beach. The boy is obsessing on the apparitions that only he can see and the girl is running screaming from the sherriff. Said sherriff has war paint on and is screaming like a drunk indian. The deputy finally has to shoot him. In closing the psychiatrist reveals that the sherriff was the boy in the opening who found his grandparents on the beach. That had all become a repressed memory for the sherriff who subconciously exacted revenge on strangers in the town. The final scene has the psyche boy walking up to the apparitions and going into the center of their dancing circle, leaving a lot of room for us to finish the story in our minds in a variety of ways. With the ending you/I didn't really know whether to classify the film as a psychological thriller or a supernatural thriller but found the plot solid.
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By what name was Cry for the Strangers (1982) officially released in Canada in English?
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