This House Possessed

I haven't seen it in years, but I saw it at least twice on television. I don't know how it would stand up to time, but I loved it! The house was so cool and modern then - and it was so scary!

Right up there with "The House That Would Not Die"!

Will they ever release these TV movies on video?

A haunted house where the haunting manifests most of the time through the computer that controls nearly every part of the house... fascinating. Yet the haunting is so powerful it can kill/watch/manipulate people miles away, and it seems the force inside the house has feelings, since it's main aim is to bring the person it loves into it's power. The script of this movie is highly original and most of the scenes are really great - the "bloody shower" scene or the very atmospheric scenes at the beginning, when the house watches the people through some monitors at night...just sitting there and waiting... - this movie really gets in your mind and stays there. Throw in a very good performance by the female leads and a convincing performance by the male lead, a really great score that helps much to enhance the thick atmosphere created by the extremely good directing, editing and photography, and here you have it: a really outstanding haunted house movie! One reviewer here criticized the use of "suddenly opening doors" in this movie: Well, yes, at one point a door opens itself, but since the house is alive a lot of stuff moves itself here, so you can't criticize that, unless you want to criticize that the movie doesn't need a lot of blood and gore to create tension... Yes, the fire at the end looks not so good at the indoor shots, but, since most of this seems to be shot outside a studio in a real (great-looking) house, I guess they just couldn't burn this great house down! But just look at that cool "breathing-wall" shot! And maybe they were low on budget, too, and if this is true, then it makes the movie even more greater, since to create such a great movie with a low budget is really a masterpiece!

Considering it's both a TV movie and a haunted house movie, it has to be said that This House Possessed really is rather good; although only on its own terms. The plot follows the story of a burnt out writer and singer of awful pop songs as he moves into a modern computerised house with his live-in nurse and later girlfriend. It's not long before strange things start happening in the house and the nurse comes to believe she may have some connection with it. One problem this film has is the plotting; the first half of the movie is basically a soap opera and while it's not especially uninteresting; it's not really what I tuned in for and it takes a while for the movie to finally get going. The first half of the film does, however, set the characters up, which benefits the film well later on. Naturally, owing to the fact that this is a TV movie, there's no gore and little violence; but there's a few death scenes and most of them are pretty decent. It all boils down to a twist that is made so obvious that I'm not really sure if it's actually supposed to be a twist at all. The idea of the house taking 'revenge' on it's inhabitants is hardly original and even the computer idea had been done previously in 'Demon Seed', but the film generally plays on it's central ideas well and it is at least an interesting film. The film has apparently become quite rare and I wouldn't say it's worth a lot of trouble to track down but if you can find a copy, it is at least worth a look.

I have watched this movie long time ago, and I think I have watched it twice, I really enjoy this movie and been searching to see if they ever show again on TV, but I guess I have no luck to see this movie or maybe I have miss it when it replay it on television. I watch this movie as when I was young and not so quite remember all the detail of this movie but I think Parker Stevenson did a great job in This House Possessed. I would like to get a hold of this movie, so anyone know where I can get this movie please let me know and very appreciate your help. I think someone out there has a copy of this movie oh VHS. Please email me and let me know at lamk69@yahoo.com

Like a few others, I saw this when I was a kid. Sure, some moments scared me, too - at the time, fresh horror stories like this on TV were rare, except "Salem's Lot." I actually just watched "This House Possessed" again last night (thanks Youtube!!) for kicks.

The director, William Wiard, had a lot of '60s & mostly '70s TV credit, so the filming mostly has a clean, flat '80s TV feel, with nice California photography & the acting is better than expected. Only a few cool & disturbing effects. The house itself is pretty spectacular.

But holy cow is "This House Possessed" mostly a blasé, slow trip. Sure, it has some of the horror moments...but most scares strangely feel more sci-fi than horror.

I'll probably get thumbs down for saying this, but some people who overwhelmingly praise this movie here on IMDb.com user reviews are too nostalgic - hey, I was there too & I liked it at the time, but trying to be realistic here to folks who haven't seen this.

....a scarier choice is 2002's made-for-TV's "A Haunting in Connecticut." Regardless, if you are curious & have time to kill, give "This House Possessed" a shot - it's on Youtube as of this writing ☺