THE HOUSE THAT WOULD NOT DIE (1970)
TV-Movie
Article 2572 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-20-2008
Posting Date: 8-28-28
Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey
Featuring Barbara Stanwyck, Richard Egan, Michael Anderson Jr.
Country: USA

Two women move into an old house. They discover it is haunted, and the younger of the women is possessed by a spirit from the past.

If you like TV-Movies, then this haunted house movie may suit you just fine. If, like me, you find them mostly bland, uninspired and cliche-ridden, this one will not make you a convert. There are some great TV-Movies out there in the horror mode (take FEAR NO EVIL and THE NIGHT STALKER, for example), but they usually avoid that cookie-cutter by-the-numbers approach of conventional scares that most of them worked with. The script is one cliche after another, the acting is uninspired (Richard Egan probably comes off best), the use of music and sound is standard-issue, and the movie just wanders from scene to scene without building up much in the way of suspense; about the only thing I really liked was the way it used an open cellar door to good effect. I suspect that more effort went into Barbara Stanwyck’s wardrobe than anything else in the movie. Oh, it’s not awful; as I said before, how much you like it may really depend on your affinity for TV-Movies in general. But, for me, it’s the Movie That Would Not Come to Life.