Simply Perfect

Fantastic!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The plot for "I Start Counting" sounds rather interesting when you read about it on IMDb: "A 14-year-old girl coming to terms with her sexuality, discovers that her adored older brother may be guilty of a series of bizarre sex crimes.". However this really isn't what the movie is all about and it also has a really creepy semi- incestuous and Electra Complex-like theme that put me off.Jenny Agutter plays Wynne--a 14 year-old. She was actually about 18 when she made the film. Wynne is really, really obsessed about her older step-brother...to the point where she has lots of incestuous thoughts. These are not in an of themselves THAT creepy...but he's more than twice her age and this brings the notion of pedophilia if he were to reciprocate. Either way, it's awfully weird and disturbing. As far as the step-brother killing women...well that's all a misunderstanding that Wynne develops and the film really is about her awakening sexual desires (such as her masturbating) and her misguided affections. Creepy and yet oddly boring in spite of all this and I had to really struggle to pay attention to all this. All in all, a waste of my time, though I guess technically it's well made.

A generally disappointing film of Audrey Erskine Lindop's gripping and atmospheric thriller. The book is so much richer and more interesting than this rather bland film. The book has well rounded characters, entertaining dialogue, and a clever plot with many twists and turns. The film oversimplifies the story and completely changes the ending for instance. And while it is easy to see why Len's twin sister has been eliminated (although a good character, she is not really vital to the plot), reducing Len's role to practically nothing completely alters the story, since in the book his interactions with Wynne are a vital part of the plot. And the narrative voice which plays such an important part in the novel, as Wynne describes what is happening and reflects on it, is of course missing, the major drawback of many films of the book. The film also fails completely to capture the character of George, or show convincingly why Wynne is so devoted to him. And the very dramatic climax of the story, with the poignant court scene at the end, is lost. The filmmakers have decided not to bother too much about plot or characters, and simply concentrate on lovingly filming the admittedly gorgeous Jenny Agutter, with all the subtlety of a Cadburys Milk Flake advert. A great disappointment.

No wonder this film sank without trace it.s rubbish. It crawls along at a snails pace,the end of the film is stupid why would Jenny Agutters character think that her friend was in any danger and more importantly who called the police why did they arrive out of no where. It,s hard to believe that the Creator of Outside Edge wrote the screenplay for this tripe, i,m sure all those involved in this film would rather forget it. For those who seriously think that this film is any good all that I can say is that they must be easily pleased. This film has little story line even less pace and no tension what so ever. More should have been done to make the brother look like they may have been the murderer, The film is rubbish.

I saw this film for the one and only time on English television back in 1980.At the time I thought it was the best thriller film I had ever seen.Since then to my knowledge it has never been shown again over here (I stand to be corrected on this one !) and appears to have sank without trace.Agutter is excellent as the schoolgirl who thinks her foster brother(Bryan Marshall) may be the local sex murderer and the creepy atmosphere builds up carefully helped by the location work on the wide windy stretches of an English New Town which I believe is Bracknell,Berkshire where Sean Connery's equally disturbing film "The Offence" was shot a couple of years later.Photography ,editing and supporting cast all first class.This film deserves to be better known in the history of British film and indeed the horror/thriller genre and its continued omission in most of the weighty film guides on the market remains ,to me, the biggest mystery and injustice of them all.