The House That Would Not Die (1970)

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Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity, The Lady Eve) stars in this tepid TV movie about a woman who moves with her niece (Katherine Winn) to an ancestral home where they’re haunted by ghosts from the Revolutionary War. The acting ensemble, including Richard Egan and Michael Anderson Jr as love interests, do their best with a script that is slow to reveal a pretty mundane mystery. The film relies on a lot of wind effects, temporary character possessions, flickering lights, and a couple of séance scenes (all the rage in the ’70s) to generate its modest chills. Unfortunately, neither the characters nor the mystery surrounding the ghosts’ identities is very interesting and the film ends without much of a confrontation. The script, based on a novel by Barbara Michaels, charts a path that future films like The Amityville Horror, The Changeling, The Ring, and The Conjuring would follow to greater success. With Doreen Lang as a séance leader who likes to let out a nice loud scream at the end of her sessions.