How Awful About Allan 1970

Allan Colleigh has psychosomatic blindness after a fire that claimed his father, a renowned academic who punished him during childhood. That same blaze also left his sister, Katherine, scarred on her face. The accident happened when Allan had left cans of paint thinner near a heater, a mistake that would haunt him as he tries to rebuild his life.

Returning home after months in a mental hospital, Allan begins to re-acclimate to a world that feels both familiar and threatening. His sister Katherine has an ex-boyfriend who calls the house, and she also takes in a peculiar boarder who claims to suffer a throat injury and can only speak in a whisper. Allan grows increasingly wary of this mysterious lodger, and soon he starts hearing his name whispered and glimpsing a shadowy figure edging closer to him. He records these sensations and suspicions on a reel-to-reel tape in his bedroom, seeking something like proof or a defense against what could be real danger—or a dangerous illusion.

Olive, Olive, Allan’s fiancée before the fire, tries to reopen contact and support him as best she can. At first reluctant, Allan accepts a renewed interaction but asks Olive to keep a lookout for the silent lodger so he can describe him more clearly. The plan leads them on a trip into town; Olive drops books at the university library, leaving Allan alone in the car. In that moment, the whispers return, and his fear spirals into a desperate urge to escape, culminating in a crash when he tries to drive away.

As the tension deepens, the blurry whispering figure intensifies Allan’s paranoia. He endures further disturbances—episodes where the voice seems to lure him toward danger, and a moment in which he slashes his own skin in a startled reaction to a delivery boy at the kitchen window. Katherine presses him to seek psychiatric help again, while Olive reports seeing Katherine’s boyfriend in town, a claim Katherine denies. Allan remains convinced there is a conspiracy to send him back to the hospital, and his dreams grow darker, filled with recollections of his father’s punishment and a childhood spent hiding in a dark cupboard. In another nightmare, the whispering voice draws him toward a room that appears burnt, where the ceiling timbers collapse, and he wakes certain that the night’s events were real. The evidence seems to corroborate his fear when he finds a piece of burnt wood in the house.

A hospital call is placed, but the psychiatrist is away. Allan must take a cab to meet the doctor when he returns. The moment the cab arrives, Allan slips on the path, and the driver turns out to be Eric, Katherine’s boyfriend, who has a croaky whispering voice he attributes to a cold. Olive comes to help, guiding Allan back into the safety of the house. Later, Olive and Katherine speak privately; Katherine says she will send Allan back to the hospital the next morning, unable to endure the strain any longer. Allan, who had tried to convince Olive that there was a plot against him, discovers that the night’s whispered voice can be heard again on the tape—yet Olive is not present when it plays back. In a moment of rage or despair, Allan smashes the tape recorder to the floor.

The danger peaks when the whispering voice lures Allan into the kitchen pantry and the door locks behind him. A fire has been started inside, and Allan, grabbing flour to douse the flames, manages to break the door down and struggle with a shadowy attacker. As the mask behind the attacker comes off, Allan’s vision returns, and he recognizes his sister Katherine in the disguise. She confesses that she had the hideous scar removed but argues that the scar should have remained as a mark of Allan’s supposed crime against their father—the so-called murder of the greatest man who ever lived.

After a period of recovery, Allan returns home with Olive, who is preparing dinner and guiding him toward a semblance of normal life. He has started a music appreciation course and seems steadier, yet the past hints remain. A letter arrives, presumably from Katherine, who is now in a psychiatric facility, begging for release. Reading it unsettles him, and, as he contemplates the future, his vision darkens once more, plunging him into blindness again, leaving his fate and the truth of what happened between family members unresolved in a world still shadowed by fear and memory.