Bunny Lake is Missing (DVD)

While this vintage black and white thriller (directed by the eminent Otto Preminger, famous for Anatomy of a Murder, and Laura) is not about bloody murder, Bunny Lake is Missing is a psychological tale of horror — the horror of a mother losing her child in a foreign country, and the horror that possibly the child is dead or that the mother is insane and the child never existed at all.

Preminger and screenwriters John and Penelope Mortimer keep the suspense ratcheted tight as you keep changing your mind throughout the film: Yes, Bunny Lake is missing. No, Bunny Lake never existed in the real world. Bunny Lake did exist, but she is now dead, murdered by kidnappers. Or she is long-dead and her ghost haunts her mother, Ann (Carol Lynley of The Poseidon Adventure).

The movie starts off with the standard premise that Ann, having very recently arrived in England from the U.S., takes her four-year-old daughter Bunny to her new school. Having to rush off to meet the movers, she leaves her daughter alone to wait for the teacher. But when she returns, Bunny is missing and nobody can even recall seeing her. Ann calls the police, and her brother Stephen (Keir Dullea, the infamous “Dave” of 2001: A Space Odyssey).

The police say they need a photo, but when she goes home to get a “snap” of Bunny for them, she discovers that all of the little girl’s things have been removed from the apartment — there is no trace of Bunny and the authorities seem to conclude that she is only a figment of Ann’s imagination. But Stephen saw her… didn’t he? Is he covering for his sister? If so, why… What dark secret do they share? They do admit that when they were children, Stephen and Ann killed imaginary child and disposed of her in a macabre ritual burial... Was the child really made-up, or is Bunny made-up?

Laurence Olivier is wonderful as the Scotland Yard inspector trained in psychology, and Lynley and Dullea make a believable pair as the possibly incestuous siblings — not a lot could be said about that in mainstream film in the mid-sixties, but the implications are there. Sly Preminger also slips in a few mental red herrings (or are they hints?) about insanity with the use of a rocking horse (who is very much on his rocker, actually) and a chiming clock (that says “cuckoo, cuckoo!” at the appropriate moments). An interesting notion that the filmmakers did not pursue was, in spite of the fact the popular rock group The Zombies are prominently featured, using their biggest hit at the time She’s Not There.

Bunny Lake is Missing explores the deep, dark recesses of shadow-filled childhoods, and sweet dreams that have turned into unspeakable nightmares. When the characters start playing the seemingly innocent games of hide & seek, around the mulberry bush, and blind man’s bluff, you’re guaranteed a shiver. Creepy settings like a doll-maker’s shop at night, and the apartment of a dotty old woman who records children’s bad dreams on a reel-to-reel and listens to them, all play perfectly into the colorless setting and Preminger’s penchant for the insidious mind-thrill. Each small character bit is perfectly cast, and the over-the-top cameo from Noel Coward as Ann’s lecherous, de Sade-loving landlord rocks.

Bunny Lake is Missing is dated to some extent — anyone born after 1965 has certainly seen this plot played out a dozen different ways in a hundred movies — but it is still a finely acted, well-put-together piece of mystery filmmaking.

The DVD is out on Tuesday, January 25, 2005. Unfortunately, there is no additional release material (commentary from Lynley and Dullea would have been most welcome).

Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson for Horror.com