Sam Panico Originally airing on November 28, 1972, this ABC-TV movie was produced by Aaron Spelling and debuted on VHS in 1986. It's packed with future talent and is at the center of what we love most here: TV movies, Christmas movies and horror.Benjamin Morgan (Walter Brennan, Rio Bravo) is rich and dying and suspects his wife, Elizabeth (Julie Harris, one of America's most famous stage actresses), of poisoning him. He sends his oldest daughter, Alex (Eleanor Parker, Eye of the Cat) to find her three sisters and bring them home - the first time they've been back since their mother's suicide.The three sisters are Freddie (Jessica Walter, Arrested Development), Joanna (Jill Haworth, The Brides of Dracula) and Christine (Sally Field, Steel Magnolias). Their father tells them that they must kill their stepmother before she kills them. At dinner that night, Joanna harangues her stepmother with questions about how her first husband died, while Freddie screams in her room about how their father's affairs led to their mother killing herself.This is obviously the holiday get-together everyone hoped for.Soon after, Joanna tries to leave but is killed by a pitchfork-wielding person in a yellow raincoat. That same killer also drowns Feddie in the bathtub while Elizabeth keeps offering everyone warmed milk and honey. Soon, the phone line gets cut and everyone is trapped with a killer. But who is it?There are plenty of twists and turns here, as the love between a father and daughter and the love between husband and wife is contested. It's bloodless, as it's a TV movie, but it's also pretty dark, because the 1970's were the end of the world and the movies made then reflected it. You also get a cast packed with Oscar winners and nominees, all acting within basically one or two rooms, so there's plenty of emotion and suspense.

udar55 Revisited this after two decades since my only recollection of it was that it featured a lot of rain. Family matriarch Benjamin Morgan (Walter Brennan) has his three estranged daughters - Frederica (Jessica Walter, Christine (Sally Field) and Joanna (Jill Haworth) - join him and his fourth daughter, Alex (Eleanor Parker), for Christmas. His reason is simple - he wants them to kill his new wife Elizabeth (Julie Harris), who he believes is slowly poisoning him. This is an effective holiday horror with great performances by all of the leading ladies. The mystery by writer Joseph Stefano might be easy to figure out, but there are still some great moments of suspense. Some of it is pretty shocking for a early '70s TV movie. For example, there is one great bit where Benjamin is dressing down his daughters and he flat out says Frederica was a hussy in junior high. Don't think that would fly today. Director John Llewellyn Moxey does a great job creating the trapped, rainy night atmosphere and gets the most out of their location (which is the same farmhouse where Spielberg shot SOMETHING EVIL).

Lee Eisenberg Actually, "Home for the Holidays" has little in the way of horror and little in the way of Christmas. It comes across as a sort of excuse to gather these various stars (Jessica Walter, Sally Field, Julie Harris, Walter Brennan) together and give the audience the task of guessing who the killer is. I'll admit that I didn't guess, but otherwise, the movie consists of people getting on each other's nerves (I probably would have gotten like that had I been with them).So, it's not terrible, just little that we haven't seen before. I just thought that it would be neat to see Sally Field do horror. But let's hope that from now on, she sticks with the kinds of roles with which she's most associated.PS: Another "Flying Nun" cast member (Shelley Morrison, aka Sister Sixto) also starred in a psycho-killer movie in the '70s: "Devil Times Five".

ccthemovieman-1 This sports a nice, deep cast but for a thriller you better deliver more than name actors and talk. The first third of this movie was nothing but talk, and more talk. Most of that was a bunch of women bitching about everything to each other. The first five listed actors in here are women so that verifies that it's really a "chick flick" and little else. This probably plays on the Lifetime network.There was a quick murder scene and then more talk. By halfway through, they had lost me. By the way, Sally Field looked about 15 years old in here.