- Directed by Dan Curtis
- Written by William F. Nolan, Dan Curtis, Robert Marasco
- Stars Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Burgess Meredith, Bette Davis
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 56 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo_6Fb5k2lo
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This one builds nicely, gradually revealing what’s going on, and there’s a satisfying conclusion. The cast is great and still holds up well after all this time. It’s a worthy watch.
Synopsis
Marian, Ben, and David drive to the big house in the country. It’s a huge old place, and they’re all surprised at the size of it. Walker, the handyman, lets them in; they are expected. It’s all very nice inside, but the outside is totally neglected. Marian repeats “such waste.” The house is hundreds of years old.
Roz Allardyce comes downstairs and bosses Walker around; they snip at each other. Roz says they’ll need to tend to the place and maintain it. “The house takes care of itself,” she says. That said, it’s an unbelievably cheap rental: $900 for the whole summer.
Roz’s brother Arnold rolls in a wheelchair. They both love the old house and say it’s practically immortal. Ben keeps waiting for “the catch,” as the price is crazy low. The catch is that the Allardyce’s ancient mother needs to stay there too. She lives upstairs in her own suite, and all they need to do is feed the old woman three times a day.
Walker carries in a dead plant, but Arnold tells him to look again; it’s not as dead as he thought it was.
Ben and the family leave to discuss the situation. He swears the deal is too good to be true. Marian gets all whiny, and Ben gives in, so they take the deal. The family returns, along with Aunt Elizabeth, Ben’s old aunt. When they arrive, the Allardyce duo have already left with a note on the door.
Marion checks in on the old woman who lives upstairs. We don’t see her, but she’s apparently in her bedroom, and her sitting room has a zillion old photos. Marion tells Ben and Elizabeth not to go up there as the old woman will be her responsibility.
David shows Ben how to start up the pool pump, so then they have to clean up that mess. Later, the two find an old graveyard full of Allardyces on the property. Once again, Marion finds the food she carried up to the old woman is mostly uneaten. We never see the old woman. She’s barely eaten in a week (and no one assumes she’s dead?). Still, some of the food’s being consumed.
Ben finds a broken pair of glasses in the swimming pool, which disturbs him for some reason. Ben and David start wrestling in the pool, and Aunt Elizabeth gets upset. Ben gets very carried away and nearly drowns David. Meanwhile, Marion is in some kind of trance in the old woman’s attic room and misses the whole thing.
That night, Ben has nightmares about his mother’s funeral. He and Marion then argue; he feels terrible about hurting David. He admits that he wanted to hurt David, but he doesn’t know why. He wonders at his own sanity.
The next morning, Marion tries to distract Ben by setting up an office for him. David is terrified of Ben now. Ben invites Marion to the pool, and he wants to get frisky, but she’s not into him anymore. He tries to make love to her, but she begs him not to– but doesn’t explain why not. She always starts hanging out in the old woman’s room, but we don’t know if she’s ever actually met the old woman who supposedly lives there.
Aunt Elizabeth and Marion have a talk about Marion’s new gray hair. Elizabeth is feeling old and tired since coming to the house. Ben has a waking flashback to the creepy chauffeur from his mother’s funeral.
Ben wakes up that night and smells gas. He breaks into David’s room, where the gas is running wide open. He carries David out and smashes a window to let the gas out. In the morning, Elizabeth says she looked in on David last night but would have remembered if she’d opened the gas vent. Probably. She seems confused, and her hair is much grayer. Marion gets positively nasty with Ben’s now-sickly old aunt.
Ben takes Elizabeth’s side and confronts Marion about it. Ben wants to meet the old woman whom Marion spends so much time with. He senses that something isn’t right with his wife.
Ben points out that the summer is almost over, and that Marion’s entirely too attached to the house; they’ll have to leave soon. He suggests leaving right away, but she flips out on him. David screams; Elizabeth is dying in her room. Ben tries to call every doctor in town, but all the numbers are busy– even the operator.
We watch as Marion takes another tray of food up to the old woman’s room, and then she eats it herself. Ben and Elizabeth both see the creepy chauffeur in her room, and he rolls a coffin at them. Elizabeth dies in reality, and they all go to the funeral, except for Marion, who doesn’t want to leave the obviously non-existent old woman upstairs alone.
Ben gets angry and demands that Marion open the old woman’s door. He insists that they pack up and leave the house. Marion is obsessed with her job as caregiver for the old woman.
It starts to rain, and Ben watches the boards and tiles outside falling off and being replaced by new ones. The house is regenerating itself. Marion, up in that room, watches Ben and David run out to the car. They don’t even slow down for Marion, but they do stop when a tree falls and blocks the road. Ben goes out to move the tree, and he’s grabbed by vines that won’t let him through. Marion catches up to them and drives them back to the house. “You’re a part of it,” he snarls, and she doesn’t deny it.
Marion calls the doctor for Ben, who is feverish in bed. The doctor says she’ll need to take him to the hospital in town tomorrow, and from the look on her face, we know that’s not gonna happen.
The next morning, Ben is catatonic. David decides to show off his non-existent swimming skills, but the whole pool gets really wavy. Ben wants to jump in and save him, but he can’t move. Marion sees what’s happening, but can’t get out of the house fast enough– the doors won’t open. As Ben watches helplessly, Marion finally gets to the pool and pulls David out.
All three of them decide it’s time to leave this place. They pack up the car, and Marion says she needs to go tell Mrs. Allardyce that they’re leaving. She goes upstairs and knocks on the old woman’s door.
Ben gets nervous and goes in after her. Ben goes into the old woman’s room and finds the old woman sitting in a wheelchair. When he turns her around, he sees that it’s really Marion, completely possessed. Ben then swan-dives off the fourth floor window onto the car, traumatizing David once again. That’s OK, because the old chimney crumbles while regenerating and buries David under tons of bricks.
The Allardyce siblings talk in voice-over while panning over the perfect, renewed house and grounds. They’re so glad their old mother has returned to them. Of course, that’s Marion, now possessed by the old woman. And we see that they have been added to the huge collection of photos in the sitting room.
Commentary
The house here is the same one used in “Phantasm,” “A View to a Kill,” and “True Lies,” among others.
It’s a creepy old house, and although we see weird things happening, and no one behaves normally, we really have no idea what’s going until the very end.
It still holds up pretty well, and it’s very good.