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So much average

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Newlyweds, Laura Wilson (Patty Duke- THE BABYSITTER) and her husband, Mark (David McCallum) stay at Mark's family estate, in spite of his mother's (Dorothy McGuire) protests. Mark's first wife, Elaine had died there, and he's very touchy about the subject. Then, Laura starts hearing a tune found on Elaine's music box, to the point of being haunted by it. She also hears voices, and screams like a banshee sitting on a porcupine! Laura becomes curious about how Elaine died. Mark doesn't want to discuss it, so Laura talks to his mother, who tries to get her to leave the house. She also tells her the truth about Elaine's death. This sends Laura into a mega-tizzy! She screams and screams. The next thing we know, Laura's entire personality changes into a major meany pants. Has Elaine returned from the dead to possess her, or Is Laura cracking up? SHE WAITS is a tale of family secrets, murder, and possible vengeance from beyond the grave. BONUS POINTS FOR: Ms. Duke's final scream, that could peel a bunch of bananas from 100 yards away! EXTRA BONUS POINTS FOR: The music score, which is sort of Bernard Herman meets Bach...

A slow-moving but suspenseful American television movie for fans of old-fashioned horror suspense yarns without the slick special effects and gory deaths that modern genre offerings give us. Filmed on mainly one location, with a small cast and a predictable plot involving possession, SHE WAITS is a surprisingly effective outing for the genre which has plenty of creepy atmosphere to please the horror fan. For once the house in which the film is set actually does look haunted, and there are plenty of uncanny moments with doors creaking open of their own accord and sudden, jarring strings on the soundtrack to help raise the hairs on the back of your neck.The movie starts off very slowly and gets more involved as it goes along, ending with an insane turnaround with lots of plot twists and a whodunit aspect as the method of Elaine's death becomes clear and the finger of suspicion is pointed at one of the people gathered in the house on a climatic night. Before all this, SHE WAITS keeps us watching with some well-grounded fear sequences like when voices are heard talking from an empty room, or a music box keeps on playing a creepy old-fashioned tune over and over. The last fifteen or so minutes of the film are those in which the "possession" occurs and are extremely taut and gripping, with an unexpected revelation.The best efforts of a familiar cast also help us to keep watching through the slow bits. Patty Duke (a familiar face in the television movie realm) takes the lead role and portrays her possession realistically, and doesn't overdo it like some could. David McCallum seems an odd casting choice for the role of the subdued husband who takes a backseat in the action and remains calm, even when about to be shot! However McCallum pulls through and puts in a sturdy, if undemanding, performance. Famous faces like Lew Ayres and Dorothy McGuire fill out the rest of the cast and put in strong support, whilst James Callahan is good value as the family friend with a dark secret.When released on video in the UK (on the Cougar label), this was bizarrely renamed NIGHT OF THE EXORCIST , despite the fact that there are no exorcisms - let alone any exorcist - in the movie! I guess they thought cashing in on THE EXORCIST's title would make it more popular, but the two films (the first with its strong visceral gut-wrenching horrors, and this with its more subtle chills) couldn't be more different.

Ghost stories were all the rage in the 1970s, but this isn't one of the better entries. Despite having perfectly good hotel reservations, newly-married David McCallum and bride Patty Duke come to stay at his family's manor in the middle of the night. Dorothy McGuire, as McCallum's mother, begs her son to leave, believing the house is haunted by his deceased first wife, but he chalks it up to her fragile mental state. Uninteresting TV-made chiller tries to create scares by having Duke hear a music-box theme that wife #1 was fond of, or feeling a presence in the bedroom when the curtains rustle. She attempts to talk it over with hubby McCallum--who's got a nasty, disgruntled disposition for a successful newlywed--and housekeeper Beulah Bondi, but nobody wants to admit to a belief in the supernatural. Long-faced, solemn scare-movie is too gloomy to be any fun.

While falling very much on the melodrama side of things as opposed to aiming for much in the way of overt shocks or scare tactics, She Waits holds together pretty well in its way, building pleasurably to a suitably fraught final block. The plot is simple, David (Ilya Kuryakin) McCallum takes his lovely new wife home to see his mother and work through some of his own issues, only for said mother to stir up the past and his wife's own neuroses into a foaming brew of the possibly supernatural. Actually for much of the time the film could simply be called something like The Menace of the Meddling Mother In-Law, as generally the point of whether or not something paranormal is going on is kept ambiguous, while the fact that the mother is doing no good is beyond question. Still, a quality turn from Dorothy McGuire keeps her character interesting if not beyond cliché, one gets the feeling of genuine fear and torment roiling away inside her, the feeling that she really is doing what she thinks best and exists in a sphere of isolation permitting no outside force to change her mind. It's a decent performance and she has great chemistry with Patty Duke as the beleaguered new wife Laura. Duke captures very well a sense of restless curiosity, steady mounting insecurity and eroding personality, malleable mind within fragile beauty. David McCallum on the other hand is very much a weak link, his acting borders on the somnambulant for most of the film, only developing a noticeable pulse and positive action in the final block, in which he does redeem himself somewhat. The scares are too thin on the ground and the details of the plot are left rather undeveloped, not that I mind having the nitty gritty left to the imagination but I definitely prefer to have a few more hints. Still, there are a few chills and the flowing camera-work gives a nicely foreboding atmosphere to the dark and daunting house in the the majority of the films action is set. Overall I'd say this is a worthy little diversion for fans of this sort of film, though it lacks much in the way of spectacle or thrills and isn't even all that tense, it keeps fairly compelling with its drama and is an admirably sincere and serious entry in a genre which was well on its way to collapsing into the swamps of camp long before this film was made. A fair 6/10 from me, though definitely a film for those already predisposed to enjoy it.