Grave Secrets: The Legacy of Hilltop Drive

This film closely chronicles the haunting in a housing subdivision in Newport, Texas and may be of interest to those with experience of ghosts and those interested in the occult. (The movie Poltergeist is the gussied-up, Hollywood version of the same story.) This film gets the haunting phenomena correct, unlike most Hollywood films about ghosts/poltergeists including shadows and poltergeist phenomena. British television did a short, documentary piece at the actual site on their "Ghost Stories" series, entitled "Real Life Poltergeist", which can be seen on YouTube. This film is recommended to anyone with an interest in the occult although it may not have enough Hollywood pizazz for those who just want a good scare.

This made for TV movie is actually a pretty good little ghost story without all the gore and blood and guts. Patty Duke is always good in whatever she is in, and this is no exception. The movie is based on a true "haunting" of a home in Crosby, Texas. The Williams family saved their whole lives to build their dream home only to find out after moving in it was built over a cemetery. There aren't many special effects, only toilets flushing by themselves and some "shadowy" looking figures roaming around, so that part of the movie is pretty weak, but this movie is more about the wife trying to convince her husband that there really is something supernatural going on, and their struggle with the developer of the subdivision. So it is not a conventional "horror" movie, but worth watching nonetheless.

This movie is about a true ghost experience that happened that happened to a couple in Texas. Other comments have been made about that it wasn't a good plot or that ghosts don't have shadows. This was not just a movie but a true story and those things really happened. For a true story, this was a pretty good movie and not just some made up Hollywood fantasy movie.

Think Poltergeist minus the crazy special effects. I enjoyed the film, quite a bit. Patti Duke, David Soul and Dark Shadows' David Selby were all a huge part of my childhood so seeing them all in the same film was very gratifying for me. For a made for TV film, the look of the film was quite good. It's a more realistic view of how an average family would deal with a haunting, as opposed to many blockbusters, where the characters seem less unconvinced and more vehement that everything is okay. The only problem I had with the film was some of the over done "folksy charm" of the characters. If you're looking for the Conjuring or Insidious, this isn't the film for you. If you're looking for a spooky little film with familiar faces, you'll love this one.

A couple move into their dream home, unaware that it and its neighbours have been built over land formerly used as a cemetery. The film is said to have been based on a true story, although how much of it is supposed to be true is not disclosed. The plot is hardly unique - see Spielberg's 'Poltergeist' (1982). Within a short time, they experience various supernatural phenomena: these range from the disturbing - mysterious shadows, the serious illness of the daughter - to the frankly ridiculous - toilets continually flushing and garage doors going out of control. There is little depth to the story: once it has become established that the land had been used as a cemetery, we do not learn anything more. The plot does not seem to develop. The characters are not particularly well drawn or in any way memorable, nor is the atmosphere particularly special. The film could be disturbing to some viewers. There is no sense of catharsis or any kind of positive message from it.