This House Possessed (1981)

THIS HOUSE POSSESSED (1981)

Dir: William Wiard

Taking a look at Wiard’s filmography, I think I’ve found another film to seek out Deadly Lessons (1983) with Donna Reed, Ally Sheedy, Nancy Cartwright, Bill Paxton, and Ellen Geer. It looks like an interesting slasher film and with star power. Unfortunately, I was watching Wiard’s earlier TV Movie effort. Just kidding, the film is f*cking weird. And in a good way.

A rockstar, if you can call him that, has a breakdown due to exhaustion. He does so while belting out a banal ballad to an unimpressed audience. This leads him to a hospital stay and the hiring of a personal nurse. The two of them drive off into the middle of nowhere, pick a random town, visit a real estate agent, and end up in a possessed house.

In an unexplained and ominous way, the house has been following the exploits of the nurse. The strange domicile is state of the art with a CCTV system, full automation, and a thirst for bloodshed. You can believe the nurse was always destined to end up at the house or that the randomness of the universe led her there. It doesn’t matter. Once the nurse is ‘home,’ the house will never let her leave. From killing a nosey librarian in a fiery car accident to strangling the musician and deadly projectile glass shards this house doesn’t f*ck around.

The home’s obsession with our nurse drive the plot. It also provides a strangeness that endures. The acting works until our nurse has to plead with the house, but I don’t believe even Meryl Streep could have acted her way out of that one. Where a decent portion of Made-For-TV movies succeed is in their building of tension. If you can’t have blood, gore, or nudity, then suspense is everything. William Wiard gives us fire and a shower of blood, but nothing ever feels as if it’s at stake. Joan Bennet (Madame Blanc from Suspiria (1977) or Elizabeth Collins from Dark Shadows) may be boiled in a swimming pool, but if we are not aware of the full power the house can wield, then it’s all just death and destruction.

Slim Pickens from Dr. Strangelove…(1964) shows up after the librarian burns up in her car. He looks at the residue from the fire and says, “Did your BBQ get out of hand?” Gallows humor is fun when it has a place in the film, but here an evil house is played in all seriousness. Maybe a little more tongue-in-cheek material could have made This House Possessed more impressive.

Side note: There’s a precursor to Oculus (2013) with a haunted mirror and there’s a red-headed doll that bares a resemblance to the real Anabelle doll.