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I was born and raised in Wilkes-Barre, PA. I was in high school when this was going on. There was a story in the local papers like everyday. It was so weird. Some believed the Smurls and some, of course, did not. Personally, I believed them for the most part. Why would anyone subject themselves with the kind of ridicule they had to endure? Not to mention my personal experiences with the supernatural (which are stories within themselves). This movie may not be a very good movie (however, I wouldn't say it was bad either), but it was frightening to me, because I was relatively close to the true story. One of my best friends lives in West Pittston, in fact the next street over from where the Smurls once lived. Although I didn't know the Smurls personally, my friend did. She used to be good friends with the oldest daughter and went to high school with her. My friend had told me stories about their house that she remembered from before it became public knowledge. She had been over the house many a time. She claims to have witnessed some strange goings on there, however nothing major. Some strange things even allegedly went on at her house after she was over there. As to how much truth there is to the Smurls' claims, I don't really know. As far as the movie is concerned, it's not great, but not half bad for a TV movie. It was spooky whether or not one was close to the actual events or not. As I've heard many Northeast Pennsylvanians complain about how they mispronounced Wilkes-Barre; that is one thing that makes me squirm probably more than anything else in the film. I realize for people living anywhere else, they would not know..but if your making a film revolving around any city, you'd think the filmmakers would make an effort to get it right. I've heard people from the area pronounce it different ways, but not "Wilkes-Bar"! "Wilkes-BERRY" (most common) or Wilkes-Bear-Ah..even Wilkes-BEAR. It may seem trivial, but it's rather cringeworthy to the natives of the area. And the set they used; they made it look like some 'happy-swell-meadows' neighborhood. It looks nothing like that...it's much more urban. All the houses are close together. I do realize that having room to shoot is a factor in making a movie, but this was way more suburban than it was. There was one night just a few years ago, I drove past the old Smurl house to show some out of area friends. That night after I got home, the lamp in the room I was staying in at my parents house just started flickering out of nowhere. My father checked it out but found nothing wrong with the lamp or the circuit. Qhite bizarre. One thing that sticks in my mind about this movie is the fact that they had the same pattern of sheets that I do!!! Freaky!!!! Overall, this movie was far from a great ghost story flick, but it was spooky, and I may only feel that way, because I was in that area when these things were allegedly happening. That's why I say, "I guess you had to be there".

Straight-to-TV, inspired by true events hokum… well that's what I thought I was getting myself into. However this dramatised case is a surprisingly eerie, bizarre and downplayed supernatural case that can get under our skin because the actual performances (the Smurls family) are sympathetically portrayed. The normal plot mechanics of the haunted house sub-genre are evident, and the atmosphere isn't particularly striking as it hangs there. You might think that if you see one, you've seen them all. But the predictable material does get more compelling further down the track, before coming to an unfulfilled abrupt conclusion that wraps it up. Everything (from the performances to the script) is done straight-face, with very little in the way of hysteria and humour. Patchy, but it works for most part. It heavily relies on story and mood, than say big special effects and lashing thrills. Although there's something just spooky about those reappearing spirit manifestations. Sally Kirkland and Jeffery DeMunn are capably good in the lead roles of Janet and Jack Smurl. Robert Mandel's crisply well-judged direction and Richard Bellis' hovering score added to the above-average production. I see plenty of jabs about the slow, ponderous pace, but I didn't feel it was that sluggish. Far from it. Slow, but not dull.

haven't seen this one for a while but unlike tons of other films this one remains quite vivid in my head. it's tense with well developed characters, creative and most importantly, effective! saw this when i was about ten and it blew my mind. the whispering pillows, the grandmothers voice coming from the basement. chilling stuff. a few bits might be a little hokey to some people but i remember being pretty disturbed by the "ghost rape". it just came out'a nowhere. also, i thought the apparitions were chilling as well. i remember the "black spot" didn't do much for me then so i know now that it is probably quite lame. but otherwise this flick is just dead on and a lot of fun. oh yeah, and i can't forget that part when they pull up to the house and flames are blazing inside and those screams! if you like a damn good ghost story then check this out if you can. no "official" DVD release yet but i guess it is shown on cable occasionally. have to keep our fingers crossed for the DVD i guess.

My boss is actually the niece of the Smurl famiy. Today at work the fact that it's 6/6/06 came up and we were discussing scary movies, and she mentioned that there was a book and movie about a haunted house in her family. She mentioned the name and I looked it up online and brought up the story here: http://www.warrens.net/smurl.htm We sat there and read it and she kept adding things to what that website said, about how she had also experienced weird things in the house as a child when she'd go to visit. She was listing off names before I even read them, and events before I read them- then when we looked at the pictures, she was telling us where rooms were, etc... so for any of you "non believers"- believe it, because it's a true story.

Fairly good acting with well done special effects and a very good story. The story is about 3 (spirits/ghosts) and 1 demon trying to break up a family. The story claims to be fact based except for a few time frames. You need to see the end of the movie and read the follow up notes to understand what happens where the film leaves off. If you where expecting the Poltergeist you will not find anything quite that intense, but fact is stranger than fiction, and this is based on fact. You may have trouble sleeping after seeing this one.

**SPOILERS** After they were flooded out because because of the winds and rains of Hurricane Agnas the Smurl's, Jack & Janet, together with their three children and in laws moved into a new home in Pittston Pa. and almost from the first day strange things began happening to them. Noises objects moving around and disappearing even strange forms appearing out of nowhere and then moving all over the house. This made the family feel that the house was haunted by something or some one that lived there previously.

The eerie events in the house became so nerve racking that Janat went to see the Wallaces who specialize in investigating haunted houses. After a thorough investigation the Wallace's tell the startled Smurl family members that their home is haunted by demonic forces and that only a sanctioned exorcism by the Church can force these evil spirits out.Trying to get the church to sanction an exorcism is better said then done since the Catholic Church hasn't been in the business of exorcisms for almost one hundred years.

Based on a true story that states at the end of the movie that after a church sanctioned exorcism in 1989 of the Smurl home. This after they were driven out by the forces of evil, and the hundreds of curiosity seekers and news reporters, from their old home in Pittston the evil sprites that haunted them were finally gone for ever. That statement is a little hard to take since the movie "The Haunted" was filmed in 1990 and released a year later in 1991! How were the movie makers so sure that the Smurl's were never bothered by these evil entities again? Since when is two year considered to be ever again? Couldn't they, the makers of the movie have waited at least ten years to make the movie about the Smrul's troubles? If by then nothing happened to them to make that statement?

Among all the people trying to help the Smurl's get rid of the evil spirits out of there home the most ridicules was Father Kent. Coming on the scene late in the film Father Kent walks right through the hundreds of reporters and townspeople camped outside the Smurl's home as if he were Moses parting the Red Sea and leading the Israelites across it to dry land. You would have thought, like the Smurl's did, that he was going to put an end to the evil sprites who've been terrorizing them all throughout the movie. But all Father Kent did was spend a few days at the Smurl house, all expenses paid, and then just as soon as he came on the scene he disappears into the night? I was wondering if this father Kent was nothing more then a con-man trying to get a free meal, or meals, and a few night at a motel without paying. Then him leaving as soon as he could before the Smurl's realized that he was a fraud and had him thrown out of their home.

I have to say that the special effects in the "The Haunted" were pretty good for a made for TV movie. With a harrowing scene where Jack was attacked and possibly raped by this demon who kept changing it's appearance so often that it seemed that it couldn't make up it's mind of what face to put on.

Pretty good ghost story & is worth watching if you like this sorta thing but it's nothing new to see - your typical "ghost story": They move into a new place, the haunting starts slow then builds up to getting more violent, priest gets called in to bless the place which makes the ghosts/demons more angry and then they move out in the end.

7/10

The Haunted is probably the only tv movie that wasn't terrible. In fact, it's one of my favourite movies, period. The plot is simple (and TRUE). The Smurl family movies into a duplex on chase street, and strange things start happening (a hammer disappears, dripping water, whispering etc.), and the family disregards it as nothing. And it is nothing compared to what happens later on. The main focus of the haunting activity is Janet (played by Sally Kirkland), who is looked at funny after she voices her theory that there may be ghosts in the house. Once they learn (from demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren) that 3 spirits and a demon infest their house, that's when the real terror begins, and at the risk of revealing too much, I'll stop there. I first saw this movie when it came out in 1991, and it scared the hell out of me (I was only 10 at the time), but for years I was waiting for it to come back on tv. when it finally did, I still loved it. This is a movie I wish they'd air on tv more often, and I still can't wait till it comes on again. Don't be expecting a big budget House on Haunted Hill or The Haunting remake with this one though, it moves more along the lines of The Changeling, The Blair Witch Project, and the original The Haunting. By that i mean, you rarely 'see' the visitors, but just mostly the things they do. This is an effective horror method that's hardly used, but believe me, it works. Unless you're into garbage like Urban Legend, you should find The Haunted an excellent movie, with good acting, and great scares.

I'm a horror movie buff (if you've read my other comments you'll know) and since i watch a lot of these i find it increasing harder to get scared which is why i welcomed this little beauty because it seriously sh*t me up! This is because the movie doesn't just give you a CGI ghost and tell you what it wants and why, instead it plays on the unknown which is the scariest thing. The low budget means the effects are no match to Hollywood blockbusters but just the shadow of black fire appearing in kitchen makes up for this because after all the simple things can have a better impact. Another scary factor is that even after the family have the ghosts exorcised and move house the shadow STILL follows them where-ever they go and considering this was based on a true story it's frightening to think this could happen to you!!! The most of the actors do an OK job playing the terrified family with the exception of the dad, he doesn't look bothered about what's going on even after he's been raped by the demon! This will interest people who love the supernatural but sceptics will obviously say it's crap.

But i think it's a great film and everyone should see it, but not on your own in the dark on Halloween like i did ha! ha!

This 1991 chiller is everything The Amityville Horror should have been and wasn't. While the bombastic performances and hackneyed,exploitative script in the latter film have garnered numerous parodies , The Haunted lets you know early on that this is no campfire story. The "disclaimer" at the beginning states that "though events of the supernatural have been subject to controversy, the events depicted were documented as true by a variety of sources." In the ensuing 90 minutes, this point is forcefully brought home due to a variety of reasons that broke exciting new ground in the stagnating haunted house genre. First and foremost,one is more apt to empathize with the characters than in your average horror film because they are down to earth, religious,middle-class people. This aspect of the film adds to its chill factor because one realizes that such horrible events could happen to anyone. Secondly, the film is well-paced and the supernatural sequences are shot with a level of intensity normally reserved for Sam Raimi's best efforts. The rape scene alone is enough to keep all but the most die-hard skeptics awake for nights on end. Thirdly, this film is devoid of the excessive excursions into pornography that too many early 90s horror flicks were wallowing in. So if you're looking for that rare synthesis between the 24-jumps-per second style of the Evil Dead flicks and the just-the-facts-ma'am attitude of Haunted History, this is your movie.

In West Pittston, Pennsylvania, Jack and Janet Smurl claimed that their home was haunted by a demon between 1974 and 1989. The Smurls' allegations received extensive media coverage, and while paranormal investigators looked into the family's supernatural claims, clergy members, psychologists, and scientific skeptics offered more concrete explanations. The events truly became a major incident.

The Smurls' experiences were the subject of a book titled "The Haunted," published in 1986, and a television film of the same name released by 20th Century Fox in 1991.

Of course, both the Smurl family and the film/book are eventually forgotten... I stumbled upon this incident/film by chance while researching Ed and Lorraine Warren.

Although the film is no more than an average TV movie, it has a high rewatch value because it is the only film to tackle these events and does so effectively. At the very least, it doesn't deserve to be lost in the dustbin of cinema history.

I didn't even know about this until early this afternoon, Custor told me at work about this movie on youtube that scared him.

While I did my work at work and had time watch this movie on youtube,

The movies start with saying it was bad on true story and few things have change in the movie.

A family moving into home and it dose not take long for mother/wife he first to feel or see stranger things in the house but of course no one believes.

Soon other stranger think happen to other members of the family and I DO! mean very stranger things, that may make you laugh, I sure laughed some of the spooky going on's

Like the ghost talking form Pillow, Yes, pillow whispering and this movies as one the stranger man-rape scenes very, it was really well flashy scene in a odd way.

I felt some of script was very weak in early part of the movie and it kinda of felt, we seen all before and done better in other movies.

This movie is worth watching but I didn't really find all that creepy or even that scary

I give this movie 4 out of 10

I really liked The Haunted (tv-movie) & every time it is on I watch it. I scare really easily so I was scared while I watched it. I also thought that Sally Kirkland did a good job with her role as well. I love movies about the supernatural & the paranormal whether they are true or made up, I like them all.

Sally Kirkland stars as Janet Smurl, a devout Catholic housewife who moves into a duplex with her husband, her children, and her husband's parents who are getting on in years. Their first few years go by mostly without incident until Janet starts hearing strange voices and feeling phantom hands molesting her as she tries to sleep at night.

After convincing her husband that there's something very wrong here, she tries to get her church to help, but they can't do anything but bless this house. At her wits end, she hires Ed and Lorraine Warren, a pair of demonologists, to break whatever has cursed their home.

Although it's shot in that typical, flat TV movie way, The Haunted wisely starts things off slowly and with a good degree of subtlety. The first few appearances by the ghosts in the Smurl home are creepy and unnerving, putting the audience on edge. It's small things like a missing hammer or tape dispenser that disappear and end up in strange places or a bizarre stain on the wall that won't allow itself to be covered up by paint.

The film's frights peak with a really terrifying sequence where the Smurl patriarch is attacked by a manifestation while he's alone watching TV. After this moment, the film can't help but go downhill a bit and it ends up just like most other haunted house movies with the saviors must come in and try to exorcise the home of demons and save the family.

The build up is still so excellent that I'd have to recommend this one to fans of ghost/demon movies.

I guess this movie works only if you believe tabloid stories, or you really believe in the supernatural (kind of same thing). It starts off decently with some scary scenes, but then turns into a farce that makes no sense except for the pouting of an endless stream of religious/spiritual utterings and sayings. If this is what religion is about, god help us.

Need James wan to remake it for the big screen with the Warrens from his new movies it would be awsome. .

The script and acting is wooden, uninspired and bland. People who believe this stuff must be determined to be hoodwinked. Seems the actors felt the same way as me as the 'performances' were stilted and lacked any energy or believability at all. Awful film, perfect evidence of how phoney these 'true' stories are. Don't waste your time.

I really liked this movie, which was based on a book by the same name...the true story of a family terrorized by demons in their Pennsylvania home. Strangely, I found the characters in the movie to be much more likeable than the actual people in the book, with the exception of the grandma (Louise Latham) who bugged me to no end with her whining. The film appears to be very loosely based on the book, however, as most of this type of "true story" films are...many events were left out entirely or embellished upon heavily to make it more sequential. One of the funniest things was the casting of the fairly attractive (and relatively youthful) Diane Baker as Lorraine Warren...if anyone has seen the real Lorraine and Ed Warren, you will see what I mean. (Perhaps as co-writers of the book they had some sort of hand in the casting...?) All in all, it's not an Amityville Horror, but a pretty good made for TV movie that's worth watching.