It's TV-time again here at Ex-Ninja, and it involves several veterans in the genre. Director John Llewellyn Moxey, writer Joseph Stefano and the still very young Sally Field! I would say, so far, that Home for the Holidays is one of the slickest and best produced TV-thrillers I've seen so far. It's not the most spectacular, but Stefan's script is excellent - from the mystery viewpoint to the edgy dialogue and very human and interestning characters.
Four sisters is called home to their dying father (played by a very elderly Walter Brennan, who died in 1974). In the letter he claims to be slowly poisoned to death by his new, younger, wife Elizabeth (Julie Harris, no less!). He's still a bastard and its easy to see why all his daughters left home early, but still - he's their blood and soon there's very different opinion if he's lying to get them home or if something really sinister is happening... everything is just a typical family melodrama until a killer - dressed in a yellow raincoat and armed with a hayfork - starts killing them off one by one!
Home for the Holidays almost works as a precursor to the slasher cinema with it's stylized killer and desolate location. Just like Stefano did with Robert Bloch's Psycho 12 years earlier. But it's foremost a typical and cozy TV-movie, one of ABC's productions - produced by Aaron Spelling. It has its share of kills, but here we have better character than usual. All sisters are very well-defined personalities. We have the drunken Frederica (Jessica Walter), the cold and shallow Joanna (Jill Haworth), the mature and overprotective Alex (Eleanor Parker) and the young and naive Christine (Sally Field). It's a brilliant cast and the almost non-existent men in the story feels fresh and logical. It takes a brilliant writer like Stefan to produce a story about interesting women. Something he's done before and after, but this is still his best when it comes this.
Another detail I like is how this is a Christmas movie (it was first aired November 28, 1972 on ABC) and it has no snow! It was meant to have a lot of snow, but the tight schooting schedule and the low budget forced the filmmakers to make it rain instead of snowing - which gives it a feeling of dread and adds a failure to this family reunion. Something that wasn't meant to work as good suddenly made it even better.
What triggers my imagination even more, and it's something that makes Home for the Holidays even better, is the ambiguous ending. Not that the main mystery is hard to explain, it's there and it's clear. But like Jud Taylor's dark and original TV-movie Revenge (1971, starring Shelley Winters, Stuart Whitman and Bradford Dillman) there's something more that never is explained. It suddenly leaves everything open to something more, something evil - or is it evil? Maybe it's a good thing in the end? We will never now and that's what I love about movies like this.
I don't want stuff written on my nose, so to speak.
Not so much else to write without spoiling the whole show. I hope you all get a chance to be entertained by this thriller one day... or dark, stormy, rainy night...
"Home for the Holidays almost works as a precursor to the slasher cinema with it's stylized killer and desolate location."
Sure sounds like it.
"But it's foremost a typical and cozy TV-movie, one of ABC's productions - produced by Aaron Spelling."
It does surprise me, every time I read Spellings CV on IMDB that he produced so much TV made horror......the king of soap!
I haven´t seen any of these TV horror films but one day....
"It was meant to have a lot of snow, but the tight schooting schedule and the low budget forced the filmmakers to make it rain instead of snowing - which gives it a feeling of dread and adds a failure to this family reunion. Something that wasn't meant to work as good suddenly made it even better."
Limited time, budget, sometimes makes for creative decisions.
"What triggers my imagination even more, and it's something that makes Home for the Holidays even better, is the ambiguous ending. Not that the main mystery is hard to explain, it's there and it's clear. But like Jud Taylor's dark and original TV-movie Revenge (1971, starring Shelley Winters, Stuart Whitman and Bradford Dillman) there's something more that never is explained. It suddenly leaves everything open to something more, something evil - or is it evil? Maybe it's a good thing in the end? We will never now and that's what I love about movies like this."
Very cryptic review by you......I guess I just have to find out for myself.....thanks, good review.
Posted by: Megatron | March 18, 2013 at 16:41