The Strange and Deadly Occurrence

While I can't comment too much on this movie in detail, I do remember it scared the hell out of me as a kid when I first saw it. The "headless" mannequin dummy and the eerie pounding is what I remember about it that was so scary. I also remember the ending, which I won't give away here of course. (Not that you'll ever get to see this movie.)

NO ONE, I mean NO ONE remembers this movie. The fact that I'm the only one with a comment here so far for this movie attests to this. This TV movie scared me as much as DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK and TRILOGY OF TERROR. Almost everyone remembers those though. I even saw DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK on video at my local Blockbuster, but NEVER this one ANYWHERE EVER.

I haven't seen it in at least twenty years. I'd like to see this again somehow and my searches turn up nothing. It's not even listed in Leonard Maltin's fat movie book. If anyone knows where this can be found on video. Please email me.

I've seen "The Strange and Deadly Occurence" twice in my life; in 1983 and 1985. Both showings were late-night on a Friday and regrettably we did not own a VCR at the time.

It's quite an eerie film with a good build-up of suspense which unfortunately concludes rather ridiculously. A lot of those TVMs now languish in scheduling purgatory which is a pity. Some enterprising individual should release a bunch of them on VHS (some films just don't suit DVD)--e.g "Vanishing Act" with Elliott Gould and "One Of My Wives Is Missing" starring Jack Klugman.

If anyone has any of the above on VHS please mail me.

In summary then: Some parallels with "Caddyshack"

I had this movie for a long time in a Betamax tape bought by my father just after buying our first color TV (a Sony KV-2142R) and Betamax (Sony SL-8600) back in mid 1978. Dubbed to Spanish and re-titled "La Casa Embrujada" ("The Haunted House"), I consider it a promising movie with a really bad ending, but anyway I'd love to have that Spanish-dubbed version just for memories from when I was eleven. It was recorded from a Panamanian TV broadcast, commercials included. I used it a lot (specially Dr. Gillgreen's face) to adjust the TV's hue and color settings, at a time in which color TV broadcasts hadn't arrived to my country (Color TV was officially launched in Colombia on Saturday Dec. 1, 1979 at 7:00 PM GMT -5). The only worry in life back then was school...

In THE STRANGE AND DEADLY OCCURRENCE, Michael and Christine Rhodes (Robert Stack and Vera Miles), along with their daughter, Melissa (Margaret Willock), are settling in to their new, rural home. Odd things begin happening almost immediately, like unexplained power outages, weird furnace trouble, and an eerie, heavy-breathing presence!

Christine soon learns of the house's dark past. Could some paranormal phenomena be afoot? And, who's the bizarre guy that insists on buying the house? As the inexplicable events grow more frequent and dangerous, the Rhodes' start to question the wisdom of their investment.

Michael believes that some flesh and blood perpetrator is up to no good. The Sheriff (L.Q. Jones) is unconvinced that anything serious is taking place. Then, a life is lost, and a secret is uncovered. This all leads to the big, shock finale.

This made-for-TV movie is an effective mystery / thriller with a nice, ironic ending. Both Stack and Miles are convincing in their parts.

Watch for the inimitable Bill McKinney as Pratt...

I've long held a great fondness for genre cinema that lays the bite on a family. I suppose because family is about the most primal, fundamental structure in society so if you really get pulling on those teeny tiny strings you can make the whole edifice feel like it's in trouble. Of course such films come in every shape and size, from the everything will be fine and nobody was ever in much danger types right through to the family itself as trunk of rot and ooze types. The Strange and Deadly Occurrence sticks mostly on the light side of the genre, but through swift pace, smart direction and determination to put everyone through the ringer with very little downtime, it manages to be a definite winner. The story is as simple as they come, a happy family in a beautiful new house are plagued by rapidly escalating unusual and menacing events. Something doesn't want them there, but why? ...Well to be honest the why isn't all that interesting. No great twists and turns, nothing too unusual or imaginative. Pretty commonplace actually. Also it renders some of what has gone before even more unlikely than it already was. Doesn't matter much though, as this is pretty small scale stuff with little in the way of ambition, just standard tightly composed TV movie thrill-chiller territory. The ending wraps everything up in suitably suspenseful fashion there are some good scares and the acting is on the mark. Robert Stack (Airplane) plays the head of the house well, determinedly hanging on in the face of the unknown but still considerate towards his wife and daughter, never brash nor intemperate but not weak either. The sort of guy you can relate to really. Vera Miles (Psycho) is equally good as his wife, somewhat more cowed by affairs but never hysterical or even especially nervous, holding herself together for the good of all. Margaret Willock comes off well as the daughter of the piece as well, the sort of role that usually drags but she manages to be perfectly likable. They work well together, and their convincing mounting fear gives the jolts that little extra push. As far as the jolts go, they are all fairly tame but a couple make their mark well, and the whole affair is boosted by quality direction from veteran John Llewellyn Moxey (City of the Dead), including various adeptly gripping sequences of fluid, roaming point of view camera-work rather similar to that of a slasher. So, as it all comes together, a decent diverting affair with some fine moments. Like most of its ilk it isn't likely to make too much of an impression on latter day audiences, being the sort of thing that mostly just freaked out kids watching it when it first aired, but its very much a solid affair and well worth a watch for fans of the eras TV chiller programming.