Night of Fear

The film opens with a woman riding through the countryside. She dismounts and ties the horse to a tree, then pursues when a bedraggled man unties the animal and it bolts away. Inside his cabin, the man attacks and locks her in a room; outside, he pulls a hidden power-box handle and shoots and dismembers the horse.

After locking her in, the man uses the secret handle hidden in the power box to unleash a deadly display outside. He shoots and dismembers the horse, a brutal sign of his control over both the space and the victim. This moment establishes the killer's reach even when the victim is restrained.

Following the unsettling opening, a near-miss with a removal van sends the woman's car off the road and down a hill. Unable to reverse, she drives forward along a dirt backroad, seeking escape.

The woman crashes into a large ditch and is knocked unconscious. She wakes to find the bedraggled man approaching with a white rat on his shoulder, then he attacks and shatters the windshield with a shovel, forcing her to flee.

She escapes into the dense bush, but the man continues the pursuit through the trees. After dark, she returns to the car and honks for help, while the man responds by rhythmically ringing his shovel against the foliage.

As she runs, she encounters the impaled head of a horse, a grisly omen that leads her to a cabin. She enters, explores, and falls unconscious, slipping into a nightmare in which the man holds a skull in a disturbing tableau.

She awakens to find the deranged man trying to enter the cabin. The man activates the secret mechanism once more; a wall panel opens and rats flood in to devour her, while close-ups show cats watching the gore.

A police search closes in on the cabin, creating tension despite the lack of proof. The man appears calm as he feeds his chickens, leaving the danger inside the cabin largely untouched.

As officers depart, they question the man, who maintains a façade of normalcy by tending his chickens. The scene underscores the distance between outward civility and the cabin's dark reality.

In the final image, a high bamboo cage contains a cat and a human skull, hinting at the killer's other victims and leaving the fate of the heroine and the mystery unresolved.