Sam Panico A rock star has a nervous breakdown and decides to recuperate in a remote house. Yet he finds himself asking, "Am I insane? Or is this house haunted?" Just by reading the title of this movie, I think you know the answer. Gary Straihorn (Parker Stevenson, former husband to Kirsty Alley and one of TV's Hardy Boys) has hired a nurse named Sheila (Lisa Eilbacher, Bad Ronald) to help him. The house they settle in seems way too familiar for her, but she can't remember a lot of her life. Like the fact that she may be named Margaret. But everyone who either screws with her - like Gary's girlfriend Tanya - or tries to help her, like a woman who gives her some newspaper clippings, all get killed by the house. Can a house fall in love with someone? After you see this, you'll answer: YES.There's a great cast in this as well, including Slim Whitman (The Howling), Joan Bennett (Suspiria and TV's Dark Shadows), character actor David Paymer, Amanda Wyss (the first person Freddy kills in A Nightmare on Elm Street) and even Philip Baker Hall (Magnolia) shows up in a blink and you'll miss him role.This movie was directed by William Wiard (his 1980 TV movie The Girl, The Gold Watch and Everything was a big deal when it came out) and was written by TV writing and producing vet David Levinson. They'd also work together on another TV movie, Fantasies.This has never been released on DVD. You're at the mercy of the grey market and YouTube. Trust me, it's worth it.

moonspinner55 TV-made thriller involves Parker Stevenson as a pop singer who is suddenly and mysteriously struck ill; needing a break from his busy schedule, and picking up a young nurse from his recent hospital stay, he happens upon an empty, isolated palatial estate in rural California, one with a dark past. Crack TV writer David Levinson penned this third-rate haunted house teleplay, and was a little late in getting it made--by 1981, the genre had pretty much played itself out. Lisa Eilbacher is the nurse who is ultimately the key to the strange happenings (after being introduced, top-billed Stevenson hasn't much to do). With her serious elfin face and worried little expressions, Eilbacher's later claim that she's never felt so at home as she does being in the house is rather preposterous (this despite the fact the local librarian was recently killed in the driveway!). The scenario itself seems awfully familiar (as does Billy Goldenberg's spooky music, with its echoes of Bob Cobert's score for 1976's "Burnt Offerings"), although the locations are interesting and the supporting players add some interest (much more so than the sleepy leads). The house, it turns out, is obsessed with Eilbacher (which is a ridiculous angle, but let it pass), even returning her old Raggedy Ann doll from childhood; however, nothing in the final 15 minutes manages to explain the fill-in-the-blanks plot. Is there a ghost in the house or are the bricks and mortar holding it up responsible for the haunting?

zoltanc666 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!

Mikew3001 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.