Absolution

A hoary old Gothic thriller from the pen of Anthony Shaffer which should surprise nobody familiar with the plot twists wrought in Sleuth and Deathtrap. Burton as the humourless teacher-priest in a Catholic boarding school oozes fleshly torment as his prize pupil (Guard) develops a malicious rebellious streak, indulged in by a cunning manipulation of the inviolable privacy of the confessional. But, as always with Shaffer, things are not what they seem, and the last act revelations about the mystery of the missing pupil (Bradley as a grotesquely pimply cripple) tumble tediously out.