14 December 2024
Home for the Holidays (1972)
78 min.
Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey.
With Sally Field, Eleanor Parker, Julie Harris, Jessica Walter, Jill Haworth, Walter Brennan.
If like us, you think the yuletide season makes a great setting for a thriller (think Bob Clark's Black Christmas - but not 1980's Christmas Evil), then by all means seek out this rare Xmas confection.

It's Christmastime. A father writes to his daughters, telling them his new wife (played expertly by Julie Harris of 1963's The Haunting) is trying to kill him.

So the women gather at their father's house to celebrate the holiday...and to decide how best to deal with their mother-in-law.

But after their Christmas Eve dinner, a killer wearing a raincoat and carrying a pitchfork begins lurking about the place, with apparently every intention of knocking the gals off!

Could the mysterious psycho really be the shifty-eyed Harris? She seems suspect. But could the mad(woman) be someone altogether different?

Great cast in this superior made for television slasher full of chutzpah and charm.

Besides, where else are you gonna catch a screaming Sally Field alongside Sound of Music star Parker? Mull it over.

Directed by the always astute John Llewellyn Moxey.

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