Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: William Campbell, Luana Anders, Patrick Magee
Happy Belated New Years and Happy Belated Holidays to all! Sorry I haven't been here in a while; school has been catching up on me. Time to get back to Saturday Night Horror, and what better way to do that than viewing one of the films from the beginning stage of Francis Ford Coppola's career?
PLOT: In the pre-title sequence, John Haloran (Peter Read) and his wife Louise (Luana Anders) go on a row-boating trip and argue about John's mother trying to exploit him. Louise says she is, John says she just doesn't know her. John then suffers a heart attack and dies, forcing Louise to dump him overboard.
Louise sends a letter to John's mother (Eithne Dunne) posing as John, saying that she has received an urgent wire from New York and that she must go and miss John's sister Kathleen's (Barbara Dowling) memorial service. She then goes to Ireland, to Haloran Castle, where she meets John's brothers, Billy (Bart Patton) and Richard (William Campbell). Billy tells her that Kathleen drowned and that Haloran Castle is haunted by her spirit.
At the funeral (the seventh funeral in a row), the boys' mother collapses and Louise uses the opportunity to steal some things from Kathleen's room. She dives underwater and leaves the toys at the bottom of the pond, but screams when she sees Kathleen's body. She swims to the surface only to be killed by an unknown criminal.
One night, Simon (Karl Schnazer), a poacher, happens upon Kathleen's body (which, by the way, appears to be fresh) and also falls victim to the unknown murderer. Also on that night, Lady Haloran ventures outside to place Kathleen's tiara on the girl's head, and nearly falls victim to the axe murderer. She collapses again.
Billy tells Richard's fiancee, Kane (Mary Mitchell) about nightmares he has. In them, he's a little boy and an insane man is climbing into his window. He screams for his mother and she comes in. The man says that he will nod his head, and the other insane person will nod their head. He nods, and Lady Haloran nods and picks him up and throws him into the pond. Kane says something about Richard throwing them both into the pond, and Billy realizes that the man in his dreams was Richard. I knew it. Well, I knew he was the murderer. I didn't know that. Oops, spoilers!
The next day, Dr. Caleb (Patrick Magee) discovers a tombstone reading "Forgive me, Kathleen" and accuses Richard of placing it there. Richard says he has no idea and Dr. Caleb asks Billy to come with him to look for Louise.
It all ends on Kane and Richard's wedding night. Caleb places Kathleen on the fountain. Suddenly, Billy appears with an axe and we find out that he was the murderer all along. Looks like I was wrong!
REVIEW: Everything about the film seemed like a rip-off of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Not saying that this was a bad film and that I wouldn't watch it again, but almost everything seemed to come from THE TWILIGHT ZONE: the music, the plot, everything. But overall, this is a decent thriller/murder mystery and I'd recommend it. 7/10 stars.
Full movie:
