This House Possessed

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!

This is a movie that has this very bad rock singer who suffers from headaches. I am guessing the only reason he sells albums is his appearance, but thankfully his singing isn't the focus of the movie. He is at a hospital where he meets this really cute brunette nurse who has very pretty eyes. The rock star takes some time off and hires the nurse to watch out for him. They go driving and they end up in this town they like and he decides that this is where they will stay. They go to the realtors and ask them to show them the most possessed house in the area. Well that didn't happen, but it might as well have. At first when I learned that the house was fully automated, I figured it would be a house goes crazy movie. Then there was the scene with the blood in the shower so it had to be supernatural, hence lies the main problem of the movie. There really isn't a satisfactory explanation as to why the house is possessed. I really felt the ending was a bit abrupt as well. On the plus side I wanted to see a haunted house movie and on that it delivered. There are some death scenes, the closing gate scene being the best, but you could almost predict what was going to happen before it did. The story moves like it is going to some super finish where all is revealed, but like I said nothing is really revealed except for the houses motivation for acting up. You do, however, get to watch a very cute brunette through the whole movie and after the beginning you don't have to put up with any more songs by the awful rock star...well one more, but it really isn't a big deal. Not a great movie, but it has its moments and it was a rather good haunted house movie.

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 ☺

A nice 1981 b-horror movie starring the late Joan Bennett and Slim Pickens about a burnt-out pop singer moving with a nurse to a high-tech-house to find out that his new building has an evil intelligence and no regrets to kill its habitants.

This TV production is a b-movie flick with a good horror atmosphere, similar to the late Hammer Horror TV shows and several Twilight Zone episodes, and an eerie Theremin-like mystery sound track. Unfortunately the film lacks of good actors, thrills and good special effects.

In fact, this movie was just made twelve years before "Jurassic Park" but shows primitive special effects like suddenly opening doors or some flame overdubs to suggest a heavy fire that were even better produced in the 1933 version of "King Kong".

"This House Possessed" is not good enough to become a horror classic and also not weird enough to become a classic entry in Michael Weldon's "Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film". At least it's thrilling and great fun to watch after midnight with a bag of crisps and a can of lager beer.