Richard Attenborough, a director with an eye for the broadest of canvases turns his focus to a genre that could hardly be further removed from the sheer spectacle of his usual Gandhi-esque style of cinema. This is basically an inept updating of the ventriloquist tale from the infinitely superior Dead of Night.

Hopkins is an introverted, failed stand up comic who finds shelter in his only real friend, his dummy. Predictably, the dummy starts "turning" on his master and one wonders who is actually in control. It's a twist on Psycho with a puppet basically and isn't at all bad. It just suffers when compared to some of the other films that have tackled a similar theme so much more effectively such as Devil Doll and the above-mentioned Dead of Night. This comes up woefully anemic in comparison.

The dull direction devoid of the necessary edginess that a tale like this requires is further weakened by a horrendous performance by Anthony Hopkins whose American accent is about as grating as any heard in recent ages - truly seriously awful. Poor Ann Margaret has little to do and tries her best to sparkle in a fairly lackluster production and doesn't make much headway due to very limited scope.

Burgess Meredith, a legend as TV's Penguin, is the most effective of the actors in his role as the suspicious ex-agent of Hopkins. The film has one or two decent scenes and some moments of tension but it would have been far, far superior in the hands of a director more adept at handling the horror genre. Attenborough's attempt is noble but fatally flawed.