Return of a Stranger

CinemaSerf

John Ireland has been imported for this rather routine crime thriller. He is "Ray", happily married to "Pam" (Susan Stephen), and newly resident in a small village with their small son. Not long after they arrive, she notices a strange man watching them. Not unsurprisingly, she gets a bit spooked and regales her husband with a rather ghastly story from her childhood and of her suspicions that this man is the very one who perpetrated an heinous crime upon her. What now ensues could have been a rather more menacing cat and mouse affair, but sadly neither the acting nor the writing do much to generate any real sense of peril as the hour this takes to conclude drags along. The photographer has had a go at creating something a little tense and the last ten minutes benefit a little from that, but ultimately this is all rather procedural Saturday afternoon fayre that throws in the odd red herring but is really all a shade too predictable.