Genius on a budget

Two criminals arrive at a remote house and have to take the owners hostage until their colleagues arrive in the morning.

That doesn't sound anything special, but Roman Polanski has made a really wonderful film with a minuscule budget.

Like Knife in the water he made a virtue out of necessity and set the entire film in a single location.

But the brilliance of the film is in the characterisation, the performances of Donald Pleasence, Fran?oise Dorl?ac and Lionel Stander, and the macabre and unsettling atmosphere Polanski creates from the very first scene to the very last.