The Collector (1965)

A withdrawn young man (Terence Stamp) with awkward social skills wins a great deal of money in a football pool. He uses the money to purchase an old house in the country. He then kidnaps a pretty art student (Samantha Eggar) with the delusion that he can make her fall in love with him. Based on the novel by John Fowles (FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN) and directed by William Wyler, this is still a deeply disturbing film some 50 years later. While Fowles' novel told the story twice, once from the boy's view and then the girl's view, Wyler and his screenwriters (Stanley Mann, John Kohn) rightly decided that wouldn't work cinematically. Essentially a two character film, both Stamp and Eggar are superb. Stamp actually makes his creepy sociopath sympathetic while Eggar (in an Oscar nominated performance) lets us feel the girl's terror and growing fear that she'll never survive. Certainly not intended as a horror film, there's more genuine "horror" in this film than most films designated as such. A classic of psychological intensity. The underscore by Maurice Jarre is one of his very best. With Mona Washbourne and Maurice Dallimore.