IMDb RATING
5.8/10
2.1K
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During her first semester at college, a co-ed finds housing at a seaside mansion where, following the death of a fellow-student, she becomes entangled in a murder mystery surrounding the pro... Read allDuring her first semester at college, a co-ed finds housing at a seaside mansion where, following the death of a fellow-student, she becomes entangled in a murder mystery surrounding the property and its secretive tenants.During her first semester at college, a co-ed finds housing at a seaside mansion where, following the death of a fellow-student, she becomes entangled in a murder mystery surrounding the property and its secretive tenants.
- Awards
- 1 nomination
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- TriviaThe film was originally shot in the summer of 1977. However, the original version was considered unreleasable. Director Denny Harris turned to screenwriters Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat to help improve the story, but they had the radical idea to reshoot the bulk of the film. The actors and actresses who played the college students were brought back for reshoots in March 1978. Yvonne De Carlo, Barbara Steele, Cameron Mitchell, and Avery Schreiber were all brought in during reshoots for name-recognition value, replacing the actors who originally played their roles. In the end, only 12 minutes of footage from the original version was retained in the final finished film.
- GoofsWhen Mason and Mrs. Engle are struggling to gain control of the pistol, several shots are fired. In the close ups, you can see that the hammer is forward. The pistol used is a model 1911 variant and will not fire unless the hammer is cocked to the rear.
- Quotes
Mason Engels: [to Mrs. Engels] Why did you have to rent those rooms?
Featured review
Family comes first.
Let it begin. Post-Halloween slashers are in force. But this just made it in before the major onslaught, and admirably it's a above par entry. Actually it probably has more common with "Psycho" , and touch of "Black Christmas", than most brain-dead slashers. The one-note story is quite typical and fairly bare on building much in the way of sub-plots, but it's the dreary, underlining atmosphere that smothers the gloomy seaside mansion and invokes a real unsteadiness of slow-burn tension. Even the performances lend well, and the central outlook on a dysfunctional family (who rent out spare rooms in their mansion to students) grows incredibly eerie. A silently steely Barbara Steele is memorably striking in her support role, while Rebecca Balding is competently fine as the main heroine. Cameron Mitchell and Yvonne De Carlo also show up. There's a subtle stylishness to Denny Harris' direction in many effective sequences, where obviously his less concerned about a body count and ghastly shocks. The feel is more like an old-fashioned Gothic-tale, with psychotic-drama currents. A problem though, would that there happened to be many flat (or dead-air) moments. Dead silence, and believable actions aplenty. It's low-budget shows, and minimal scope gives the film a tight, dank and creaky vibe that works. Even the vast, forlorn coastal location choices, and shadowy, cob-web house-bound settings are nailed down to perfection. Roger Kellaway's hysterically sombre music score had that familiar sound to it, but Michael D. Murphy & David Shore's murkily prying cinematography really sneaks up onto the viewer. Even within the empty passages, it still emit's a spine-tingling ambiance and workably solid performances by the cast.
helpful•113
- lost-in-limbo
- Mar 3, 2008
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- Budget
- $600,000 (estimated)
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