La Maison maudite

Considering it's both a TV movie and a haunted house movie, it has to be said that This House Possessed really is rather good; although only on its own terms. The plot follows the story of a burnt out writer and singer of awful pop songs as he moves into a modern computerised house with his live-in nurse and later girlfriend. It's not long before strange things start happening in the house and the nurse comes to believe she may have some connection with it. One problem this film has is the plotting; the first half of the movie is basically a soap opera and while it's not especially uninteresting; it's not really what I tuned in for and it takes a while for the movie to finally get going. The first half of the film does, however, set the characters up, which benefits the film well later on. Naturally, owing to the fact that this is a TV movie, there's no gore and little violence; but there's a few death scenes and most of them are pretty decent. It all boils down to a twist that is made so obvious that I'm not really sure if it's actually supposed to be a twist at all. The idea of the house taking 'revenge' on it's inhabitants is hardly original and even the computer idea had been done previously in 'Demon Seed', but the film generally plays on it's central ideas well and it is at least an interesting film. The film has apparently become quite rare and I wouldn't say it's worth a lot of trouble to track down but if you can find a copy, it is at least worth a look.

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 ☺

I haven't seen it in years, but I saw it at least twice on television. I don't know how it would stand up to time, but I loved it! The house was so cool and modern then - and it was so scary!

Right up there with "The House That Would Not Die"!

Will they ever release these TV movies on video?

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.

Utterly weird but extremely neat little TV thriller. Once again a perfect example of how they do not make TV movies like they used to. Parker Stevenson is pretty good as a rock singer who is inexplicably drawn to take a vacation and move into a top-notch, amazing home. Suddenly, strange things start occuring to him and his girl Lisa Eilbacher. Though it has a very low-budget look to it, this film is good entertainment and the last time I viewed it was on TBS several years ago. Worth tracking down.