'Assault' (1971) - Sidney Hayers.

Following the release of Sidney Hayer's beautifully restored, razor-edged 1971 thriller Assault, the relatively unheralded genre works of this talented British filmmaker has gradually, and wholly deservedly, come under closer scrutiny. A sharply executed exercise in Gialloesque terror finds resourceful Det. Chief Supt. Velyan (Frank Finlay) utilizing unconventional means to capture a demented erotomaniac haunting the woods frequently used as an increasingly precarious shortcut by many of the local schoolgirls. 

Hayers notorious slasher certainly lives up to its blunt moniker, remaining a gritty, tautly-plotted psycho-shocker about a singularly savage schoolgirl slayer. Frank Finlay is at his charismatic best as the earnest copper, and, gorgeous Giallo gal Suzi Kendall final girls it like a flaxen-haired boss, and not for the first time, Tony Beckley steals the show as the tightly-buttoned head mistress's perma-lecherous husband! Sidney Hayers thrilling Assault provides exemplary adult entertainment, and the tortuously tense, spectacularly shock-stuffed finale has a grip like post-coital Mantis! Not to be missed, this twisted, sinisterly schoolgirl skewering, maidenhead flaying fright fest remains a gruesomely realistic Brit-Horror classic!