Sudden Terror

Pros: a beautiful scenery, the plot itself is OK, a few not quite expected events, there's some suspense, a few chases and some of the actors did pretty well. Not an amazing film, but it's pretty good, all things considered. Cons: the grandfather is way too eccentric and behaves like a retired magician, or a circus ringmaster, not at all like a retired high rank military officer. I get that he likes his grandson and is amused by his free spirited attitude, and while that is cute, there's simply no way to take the grandpop's behaviour seriously. It's just not believable and it did spoil the film for me a fair bit. With that being said, while he acts strangely throughout most of the film, he turns into some sort of action hero towards the end.

The Malta setting couldn't save this. The acting was diabolical, and everything seemed so amateurish. Jeremy Kemp was just so wooden he looked like he had escaped from the Thunderbirds set. The car chase at the end was very good and realistic with the Triumph Vitesse getting pounded by the Land Rover. We are well used to serial killing in dramas nowadays but somehow the complete disrespect for life in this film was somehow shocking. How many murders were there ... 8??

i bought this movie because i became a fan of mark lester after watching oliver. however i was somewhat dissapointed in this movie while it is exciting theres i snoyt much too it other than the boy being chased around by the bad guys. in is very voilent for a flim rated pg but of course pg 13 did not exsit back then.i guess basically it is a good movie to watch when you have nothing better to do.

I suppose if you were 12 years old and lived in a lighthouse on a small island, you might be as naive as Mark Lester's character, "Ziggy," in this film. I suspect, though, that "not very smart" would need to be added, and I wonder if the correspondence to the comic strip character of the same name is more than coincidental. Everybody in this movie is a stereotype, but most irritating was Mark Lester himself who, after doing such a fine job in "Oliver!," here only gets to run around looking perpetually frightened out of his wits. I don't know for whom exactly this one was intended, but if you're not totally impressed by loud motorcycles with bad mufflers, I'd give it a miss.

Having visited the island 16 months ago I was able to recognise many of the locations in Valletta.That is about the only memorable aspect of this film.One gets fed up pretty quickly with Mark Lester.Peter Vaughn makes an effective villain.

This has a certain amount of promise with its Maltese setting, a host of reliable British actors, a young Mark Lester and a fairly young Susan George. Although the cinematography is fairly sparkling, with shots into motorcycle mirrors, faces caught through gates and a superbly photographed car chase and aftermath, the director seems bored and as much time is spent letting Lionel Jeffries go on just a little too long than opening up a decent story line. There is, as might be expected, too much time with Lester too. Appealing enough as the young lad is, numerous sequences of him chasing or being chased make this seem more like a children's film than anything else, however attractive the streets of Valetta. Regarding the stop and start soundtrack, as an old fan of Van der Graaf Generator, I kept an ear out for their supposed contribution. No luck and nobody seems clear just what their input was but I'm assuming it was their music helping to make that road chase at the end so memorable.

In this interesting variation on THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF and THE WINDOW, a little boy(Mark Lester), known for telling tall tales, witnesses the brutal murder of a visiting President in Malta. Naturally, when he tries to tell his family they don't believe him, but the killers do! A good suspense film, but the cast is better than the material. Lester(of OLIVER fame) is outstanding as the colorful little lad, and Susan George and Lionel Jeffries as his frustrated sister and grandfather are fine support.