Nothing but the Night is a 1973 British horror film directed by Peter Sasdy and starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.
When various trustees of the Van Traylen Orphanage begin dying in close order, it's at first written off as a coincidence. But, when a school bus accident very nearly takes out three more of them along with a group of orphans, Special Branch chief Col. Bingham (Lee) and his pathologist friend, Sir Mark Ashley (Cushing), begin looking into the deaths. They come to think the answer lies with Mary Valley (Gwyneth Strong), one of the girls on the bus, who has vivid memories of things she could not possibly have seen.
Tropes:
- Burn the Witch!: Anna Harb is dressed up as the guy and then dropped on to the bonfire during Guy Fawkes night.
- Clothing-Concealed Injury: Mrs Van Traylen always wore long gloves to conceal scars she received in a fire years earlier.
- Combat Haircomb: Dr. Haynes is murdered by being stabbed through the temple with one of Anna Harb's hatpins.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: When the car containing one of the trustees rolls over the cliff in the opening montage of deaths, it explodes the moment it leaves the cliff when it is not remotely close to hitting anything.
- External Combustion: Five trustees are killed when their yacht explodes: dynamite stolen from the quarry rigged to explode when the engine switched over to the reserve fuel tank.
- Grand Theft Me: The ultimate secret of Iver House is that Mrs Van Traylen has worked out how to transfer her personality into a new body and has placed herself into the body of Mary Valley. She has done the same to the other dead trustees, placing them in the bodies of other orphans.
- Handbag of Hurt: When Joan Foster attempts to pull Mary away from Anna Harb in the hospital, Anna whacks her with her handbag.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: The climax of the film happens on Guy Fawkes Night.
- Immortality Immorality: The secret behind the murder of the trustees of the orphanage is that the trustees have been transferring their personalities and knowledge into orphans and then destroying their old bodies to disguise the real cause of death.
- Intrepid Reporter: Joan Foster is a tabloid journalist who is contacted by Anna Harb in an attempt to gain access to her daughter. After Dr. Haynes is murdered and Anna goes on the run, Joan stays on the story and follows it to Scotland; determined to see it through to the very end.
- Man on Fire: The downwash from the helicopter blows the flames from the bonfire on to Mary Valley, setting her alight and causing her to throw herself off the cliff into the sea.
- Never Suicide: Three trustees of the Van Traylen fund have died during the last few months in deaths looking like suicides. However, after a mysterious bus accident involving the last three trustees and thirty orphan kids, Colonel Bingham of Special Branch starts investigating.
- Orphanage of Love: Oddly enough, despite being an orphanage in a horror film, Iver House seems to be an extremely well run institution, and all the children there appear very happy. Of course, they do not know what is going on behind the scenes...
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: When Mary throws herself off the cliff, the other trustees who have had their personalities transferred into children, immediately follow her and throw themselves off as well.
- Weaponized Headgear: Dr. Haynes is murdered by being stabbed through the temple with one of Anna Harb's hatpins.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: While in the hospital, Mary Valley suffers nightmares about being trapped in a fire; a fear that she does not have when she is awake. The reason for is Mrs Van Traylen has transferred her soul into Mary and she had a phobia regarding after seeing her husband die in a fire in which was badly burned.
- Would Hurt a Child: The conspirators murder one of the children at the orphanage who gets too close to learning the truth, and then dump his body in the woods covered in occult symbols to make it look like the work of Satanists.
