Film

Seance on a Wet Afternoon

Name: Seance on a Wet Afternoon
Genre: Crime, Thriller, Drama
Released: 1964
Cast: Kim Stanley, Richard Attenborough, Margaret Lacey, Marie Burke, Maria Kazan

A 1964 British thriller about a deluded woman who uses fake seances to build her psychic reputation, then escalates to kidnapping a child to prove her supernatural powers. Kim Stanley's performance is luminous and unsettling—Myra is sympathetic and terrifying in the same breath. It's a character study wrapped in crime, tense but never exploitative, anchored by a marriage that's both tender and claustrophobic.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to quiet, claustrophobic character studies, where a vain, desperate plan is measured out in small domestic details and Kim Stanley's brittle, mesmerising performance does most of the work.

Skip it if you need brisk plotting or a clear moral compass, since the film moves at a deliberate, almost stifling pace and its characters are hard to warm to.

What it asks of you: Settle into a just-under-two-hour run that builds its tension through glances and silences rather than set-pieces, so your patience is repaid slowly and the dread accumulates.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Gaslight1944

Ingrid Bergman's performance as a woman psychologically manipulated by her husband is similarly hypnotic and disturbing. It explores how intimacy can become a weapon, how reality fractures under pressure—the same moral territory.

But The pacing is slower than modern thrillers. If you need constant action, the psychological tension alone may feel like not enough.

The Killing1956

Kubrick's noir about a racetrack heist gone wrong has that same sense of ordinary people attempting something beyond them, with mounting dread. The structure jumps around, building terrible inevitability.

But Shot in grainy black-and-white on a tiny budget, it can feel stagey. The dialogue occasionally creaks with period affectation.

Marnie1964

Hitchcock's portrait of a fractured woman—compulsive, secretive, damaged—released the same year. Tippi Hedren's performance captures that same mix of vulnerability and danger. Both films trust their actresses completely.

But Hitchcock's psychology feels more theatrical and schematic than the naturalism of Seance. Some find it overwrought by modern standards.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Seance on a Wet Afternoon

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Daughters of Darkness1971

Both films use a woman's psychological state as the landscape. Both are intimately shot, trusting long silences. Both suggest evil or madness not as spectacle but as a way of being.

A Belgian vampire film that operates entirely in mood and insinuation rather than action. Like Seance, it's hypnotic and strange, exploring delusion and sexuality through a female protagonist's experience. Visually beautiful and morally ambiguous.

But It's slow, sensual, and oblique. If you need plot clarity or psychological realism, this mythic, dreamlike approach will frustrate you.

The Wicker Man1973

Another British thriller where the horror emerges from character and belief rather than violence. Christopher Lee's folk-horror cult and Myra's delusions share an obsessive, inescapable logic. Deeply unsettling.

But The folk-song sequences will test your patience. The film moves at its own hypnotic pace, which reads as slow if you're not in its grip.

Repulsion1965

Polanski's portrait of a woman's psychological unraveling—Catherine Deneuve alone in an apartment as her mind fractures. Like Seance, it's intimate horror, never exploitative, anchored by a mesmerizing lead performance.

But It's bleak and uncompromising. There is no catharsis or comfort, which is precisely the point, but not everyone wants that from cinema.

The Night of the Hunter1955

Charles Laughton's only directorial effort: a nightmare-logic thriller with Robert Mitchum as a predatory preacher. Visually stunning, morally unambiguous about evil, with genuine dread threaded through every scene.

But The Southern gothic style is mannered and strange. If you need realism, this stylization will feel arch and artificial.

The Servant1963

Losey's study of power, manipulation, and class in a London house. Like Seance, it's claustrophobic and slow-burning, with two people locked in a dance of domination that becomes increasingly surreal and horrible.

But Very little happens by conventional plot standards. It's an atmosphere, a mood, a dissection. Some will find it dramatically inert.

Lonely Hearts2006

This account of real-life serial killers who preyed on lonely older people through lonely-hearts ads shares Seance's exploration of how ordinary people commit extraordinary crimes. John Travolta and James Gandolfini are both unnervingly human.

But It's gruesome and genuinely depressing in a way that feels less like thriller entertainment and more like a true-crime autopsy. Not cathartic.

Madame Sin1972

Bette Davis as the cool mastermind of an elaborate scheme, Christopher Lee as her target. It has the same Britishness, the same focus on character over action, the same sense of baroque plotting undermined by human frailty.

But It's a TV movie that feels like a TV movie—cheaper, smaller, less assured in its filmmaking. The ambition exceeds the budget.

The Invisible Man1933

Both films center on a protagonist engaged in an elaborate deception that becomes real to them. Both use confined spaces and domestic tension to generate dread. Both understand that conviction is more dangerous than violence.

Whale's early sci-fi thriller, surprisingly dark and intimate for its era. It's fundamentally about obsession and the corruption of a good man by his own power—Claude Rains entirely voice-acted yet utterly present and terrifying.

But It's nearly a century old. The special effects are visible as effects. The pacing is antique and theatrical in ways that read as slow.