The Initiation of Sarah

"The Initiation of Sarah" (1978) starring Kay Lenz, Shelley Winters, Tony Bill, Morgan Brittany, Tisa Farrow, Robert Hays and Morgan Fairchild is a made for TV horror chiller about a college women just learning about her special powers.

Patty Goodwin (Brittany) and her adopted sister Sarah (Lenz) are off to college together as freshmen and they hope to join their mother's former sorority, Alpha Nu Sigma. Jennifer Lawrence (Fairchild) is the beautiful and mean leader of the sorority and while Patty has the good looks and demeanor that fits right in with the other snobs at Alpha Nu Sigma, poor Sarah does not.

Sarah finds her group of misfit friends at the Phi Epsilon Delta (PED) sorority which has a long rivalry against Alpha Nu Sigma. PED is run by house mother Mrs. Erica Hunter (Winters) who teaches the occult and instantly knows Sarah is the future of their house.  Mrs. Hunter recognizes that Sarah has the power to move things and cause things to happen when she is angry.  Can she focus that power on the vindictive and cruel sisters of Alpha Nu Sigma?

"The Initiation of Sarah" is a fun made for TV movie with Shelley Winters doing an excellent job as the eccentric and mysterious Mrs. Hunter.  Kay Lenz plays the underdog Sarah quite well and we see her struggle to fit in and find some happiness which comes so easily for her sister.  All in all, a fun horror chiller to watch on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Hammer House of Horror

"Hammer House of Horror" (1980) was a British TV anthology series from the famous horror production house of Hammer that aired during 1980.

There were 13 episodes that aired in the U.K. and later in the U.S.  These stories are 50 minutes each and have production values of mini movies.  They carry on the Hammer horror traditions of creating an eerie atmosphere, spine tingling situations, sense of dread and a touch of gore.  

I never saw this series until I found the DVD set which includes all episodes including the 13th episode "Mark of Satan" which didn't air in the U.S. because it was deemed too disturbing for American audiences.  Each episode creates a sense of atmospheric horror that is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat and make you yearn for the days when they made movies and programs like this.  I thoroghly enjoyed discovering this great horror series!

Episode List and summaries from IMDB:

• "Witching Time" (original British TV air date 9/13/80) 
• At the isolated Woodstock Farm in rural England, workaholic composer David Winter is depressed because he feels that his wife, actress Mary, is unfaithful. In a dark and stormy night, Lucinda Jessup, the ghost of a witch from the 17th Century and former dweller of the farm, arrives in the barn and possesses David. Mary fights against Lucinda trying to recover David.
• Starring: Jon Finch, Patricia Quinn, Prunella Gee
• 
• "The Thirteenth Reunion" (9/20/80) 
• Ruth, the reporter for the women's section of a magazine, is assigned by her editor to participate in the ten-weeks course of a new weight-loss organization called "Think Thin". According to a letter from a reader, the course is very masochistic and depressing, destroying the self-esteem of the patient. Ruth makes a friend in the course, who dies in a car crash. During the funeral, an employee of the funeral house discloses weird events that are happening in his job. In her investigation, Ruth finds dark and macabre secrets.
• Starring: Julia Foster, Dinah Sheridan, Richard Pearson
• 
• "Rude Awakening" (9/27/80) 
• A real estate broker finds himself having dreams that seem to be incredibly real. They are so real, in fact, that he begins to wonder which is the dream and which is reality.
• Starring: Denholm Elliott, James Laurenson, Pat Heywood
• 
• "Growing Pains" (10/4/80) 
• After the death of their son William Morton, the diplomat Laurie Morton and her husband, the scientist Terence Morton adopt a boy, James. From the moment James moves to Morton's house in the country on, weird things happen with the family.
• Starring: Barbara Kellerman, Gary Bond, Norman Beaton
• 
• "The House that Bled to Death" (10/11/80) 
• William and Emma Peters buy an old house where a brutal murder happened years ago in very bad condition with the intention of restoring it. They move with their daughter Sophie, and become friends of their neighbors Jean and George Evans. However, eerie events happen in the house, inclusive the death of Sophie's cat. In Sophie's birthday party, a pipe leaks blood and they leave the place, disclosing a secret later.
• Starring: Nicholas Ball, Rachel Davies, Brian Croucher
• 
• "Charlie Boy" (10/18/80) 
• A carved African fetish with voodoo powers has a dangerous mind of its own.
• Starring: Leigh Lawson, Angela Bruce, Marius Goring
• 
• "The Silent Scream" (10/25/80) 
• When Chuck Spillers is released from prison, he tells his wife Annie that he had been visited by an old man, Martin Blueck, along his sentence for robbing a safe, and Blueck had given some money for him to help a fresh start in life. On the next morning, Chuck pays a visit to Blueck in his pet shop to thank the support and is invited to work for him feeding his animals in his private zoo while he is traveling. Blueck explains that he trains animals, conditioning then to obey some signals.
• Starring: Peter Cushing, Brian Cox, Elaine Donnelly
• 
• "Children of the Full Moon" (11/1/80)
• A married couple, lost in the woods, stumble across a creepy mansion and its inhabitants - an overly-kind old women and deadly wolf children that scour the country-side looking for victims.
• Starring: Christopher Cazenove, Celia Gregory, Diana Dors
• 
• 
• "Carpathian Eagle" (11/8/80) 
• Murder victims are being found with the hearts cut out. A police detective is assigned to find and stop the killer.
• Starring: Anthony Valentine, Suzanne Danielle, Siân Phillips
• 
• 
• "Guardian of the Abyss" (11/15/80) 
• A scrying glass puts an antiques exporter in the path of a woman fleeing from devil worshipers and the evil hypnotist who leads them.
• Starring: Ray Lonnen, Rosalyn Landor, John Carson
• 
• "Visitor from the Grave" (11/22/80)
• A former mental patient kills her would-be rapist, but his corpse returns from its secret grave.
• Starring: Kathryn Leigh Scott, Simon MacCorkindale, Gareth Thomas
• 
• 
• "The Two Faces of Evil" (11/29/80) 
• A family on holiday stop to pick up a mysterious hitchhiker.
• Starring: Anna Calder-Marshall, Gary Raymond, Paul Hawkins
• 
• 
• "The Mark of Satan" (12/6/80)
• A man sees the number nine everywhere and is convinced the forces of evil are at work.
• Starring: Peter McEnery, Georgina Hale, Emrys James
• 

Black Christmas

"Black Christmas" (1974) starring Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, John Saxon and Andrea Martin is a classic Canadian slasher that is low on the gore but high on the suspense.

It's Christmastime and the women of a college sorority house are getting ready for the holiday.  A few are remaining at the house while most go back home to family members.  Someone keeps calling the house and screams, talks in weird voices and generally scares the women.  There is also some unseen killer that has infiltrated the house, up the trellis and into the attic.  

This is a fun horror movie and a perfect example of the early horror slasher film that doesn't have to show every gruesome detail of the deaths to make it scary.  The characters, especially the beautiful Jess (Hussey), hilariously outrageous Barb (Kidder) and campy fun house mother, Mrs. Mac (Marian Waldman) make this a film that you can watch over and over.  It is filled with a sense of dread and suspense that will keep you guessing right up to the end.  

"Black Christmas" is a must see for horror fans, especially around Christmas!

Merry Christmas from A Haunting on the Screen!

Merry Christmas from A Haunting on the Screen!!

 'Twas the night before Christmas...

and all through the house...

not a creature was stirring...

except for a murderous wife

and a psychotic Santa!

Joan Collins gets her just desserts in this classic holiday horror story from "Tales from the Crypt".

The Lost Moment

"The Lost Moment" (1947) starring: Robert Cummings, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead is a Gothic romance that takes place in the 19th century.

The film is based on Henry James' story "The Aspern Papers".  American publisher Lewis Venable wants to publish a famous poet's love letters to his love Juliana Borderau.  Juliana is now 105 years old and living in a big old mansion along the canals of Venice.  The family doesn't want to part with the letters but Lewis is on a quest to get them and tricks the Borderaus into leasing a room to him (under an assumed name) so he can write a book.  The Borderaus household is now mostly run by the niece Tina Borderau who takes care of her ailing aunt and doesn't want guests.  The Borderaus are struggling financially though and need the money to keep the house.

The house is dark and brooding.  Lewis meets the aged aunt (an unrecognizable Agnes Moorehead) who even sells him family artifacts but won't let him see the letters.  Late at night, Lewis hears piano playing in the other side of the house.  He follows it and finds the usually cold and severe looking niece Tina, in a flowing dress and set of rooms that used to belong to the aunt when she was young.  It turns out unbeknownst to Tina, she is re-living her aunt's earlier life and romance with Aspern.

Will Lewis follow through with getting the letters no matter what or will he be won over by the inhabitants of this house that is haunted by the past and can't seem to move forward? 

Crooked House

"Crooked House" (2008) is a British made for TV miniseries that was shown in three episodes.  It is a trio of ghost stories centered around the same cursed house called Geap Manor, starring Lee Ingleby, Mark Gatiss and Derren Brown.

The first story is called "The Wainscoting" about an 18th century greedy rich man who makes a fortune on the backs of the local working folk and has purchased, renovated and moved into Geap Manor, the local "haunted house".  He soon gets more than he bargained for when the house's walls start to haunt him.

"Something Old" is the second story that takes place in Geap Manor in the 1920s.  A lavish costume party is taking place and the owner's grandson announces his engagement to a local woman.  The grandmother is not pleased because there is some secret from her past that is haunting the halls of the house and will soon affect her grandson.

"The Knocker" is the final story which takes place in the present with Ben, the main character who found Geap Manor's door knocker in his suburban home that sits on the site of the old Manor.  In addition to finding out more about Geap Manor, he discovers a doorway into the past where he sees what created the evil that continues to surround the house and the land it sits upon.

You can find these all together as one movie and it is a fantastic series of haunted house and ghost stories to keep you more than sufficiently scared!

The Possessed

"The Possessed" (1977) is a made for TV horror movie starring James Farentino, Claudette Nevins, Eugene Roche and Harrison Ford about demonic possession at an girls' school.

Sisters Ellen Sumner (Nevins) and Louise Gelson (Hackett) run Helen Page School for Girls in Salem. Graduation is nearing and things take a turn toward the bizarre.  Papers spontaneously combust in Ellen's hand.  Her daughter's dorm room inexplicably catches fire and the doors won't open from the inside so she and her roommate can get out.  One of the student's robe catches fire and she is sent to the hospital with third degree burns.

Louise fears her school will be ruined.  Ellen does some research and finds a defrocked Catholic minister, Kevin Leahy (Farentino) who arrives and believes there is a demonic possession.  He interviews students and teachers, including a very young Harrison Ford as Paul Winjam the hunky biology teacher.  Can he stop the possession before anyone else is hurt?

This film does a nice job of not revealing who is possessed until near the end of the film.  It keeps you guessing throughout.  It's a fun, old fashioned TV horror movie that you just don't see any more.