A psychiatrist, Martin Dysart, investigates the savage blinding of six horses with a metal spike in a stable in Hampshire, England. The atrocity was committed by an unassuming seventeen-year-old stable boy named Alan Strang, the only son of an opinionated but inwardly-timid father and a genteel, religious mother. As Dysart exposes the truths behind the boy's demons, he finds himself face-to-face with his own.
Richard Burton
as Martin Dysart
Peter Firth
as Alan Strang
Joan Plowright
as Dora Strang
Harry Andrews
as Harry Dalton
Colin Blakely
as Frank Strang
Eileen Atkins
as Hesther Saloman
Jenny Agutter
as Jill Mason
Kate Reid
as Margaret Dysart
John Wyman
as Horseman
Elva Mai Hoover
as Miss Raintree