Home for the Holidays

Plot synopsis:
This wealthy man called Benjamin "Ben" Morgan (Walter Brennan) is sick and is supposedly being taken care by her second wife. However, he doesn't trust her and calls - we can even say that he summons - her four daughters to visit him at his isolated mansion.The film begins with Alexandra "Alex" Morgan (Eleanor Parker) driving her own car to pick up her siblings at the airport. She is stopped by Doctor Ted Lindsay (John Fink), an old boyfriend of hers, who inquires about her return to the village after nine years. They also comment on the worsening weather and that the four siblings will only stay for the Christmas holidays.When Alex arrives back to the mansion, it is already night and pouring down with rain.Frederica "Freddie" Morgan (Jessica Walter) is dying for a drink. Christine "Chris" Morgan (Sally Field) complains. She has promised herself not to set foot in that house again, not even to have the pleasure of see her father's coffin go down. She inquires exactly what the family crisis is about. Joanna "Jo" Morgan (Jill Haworth) really feels distraught because of the bad blood against their father. Alex admits that it's because Ben is a dying man, and also because she got a letter from him accusing his second wife Elizabeth Hall Morgan (Julie Harris) of poisoning him. Alex thinks that they shouldn't let her murder somebody "again". If it were not for that, she would be the first not attending the funeral and letting his new wife to bury him on her own.The four of them need to speak to Ben. They see Elizabeth at the top of the stairs. She asks them to be civil while they are there. Freddie can't stand thinking that they are sleeping on the bed where their long-suffering mother died. Elizabeth tells them to see Ben at once.Ben complains that Elizabeth has ears everywhere - in fact, she is trying to overhear from behind the door right now. Ben is rude to every one of his daughters, until Chris presses him on. Ben doesn't want Elizabeth to hear what he has to say, but Jo looks out of the window and she can see her putting on an ugly raincoat and living. Apparently, he has told her that they are coming back because he begged them to and they wanted his money. At the beginning, Ben didn't believe his second wife had murdered her first husband, but now he wants his daughters to kill her so that he will be saved.Elizabeth has come back. Chris speaks about the storm with her when she goes to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. They also speak about Kelly, who usually works for the Morgans but these days is sick.The four siblings blame Ben for their mother's suicide. Elizabeth prepares the coffee.Freddie is still traumatized about her mother crying while Ben was to see his lover. Freddie looks really unstable, drinking too much and taking pills. She is so drunk that she can't have dinner with her siblings and Elizabeth. It isa very bleak Christmas eve dinner. Ben apparently doesn't want to see any doctor, not even Dr Lindsay. Chris says that when she was having problems with her husbands she could speak to Alex, who always was her rock and her crying shoulder, resulting in her not needing to kill any of her husbands.Elizabeth knows all the rumours about her. She says that it was terribly difficult to find accommodation or a job because everybody thought she was a murderer of her first husband, although that evening she was with Ben, but only Jo and the grand jury believed in that possibility . She recalls waking up screaming in jail.At that moment, Freddie screams for bloody murder. Chris, Alex and Jo run to her room. She has a piece of glass. She is totally out of her mind. She hugs the portrait of her late mother. Her siblings hold her down while she tries to attack Elizabeth with that piece of glass. Jo is left staring at the painting, tainted by Freddie's blood, as if the painting had rained.Alex begs Jo not to go away. They are discussing who is the emotional prisoner of whom. Jo believes that the letter is just a trick to have the four sisters present at the house at the same time. Jo is all pack up to go.She tries to say goodbye to Chris, but she is taking care of hysterical Freddie. Jo and Chris say goodbye outside. The storm rages on.Jo has picked up her suitcase and umbrella and is trying to make it to her car. At the last second she can't findthe keys. Somebody in Elizabeth's yellowy raincoat kills her with a pitchfork of her back. The body is hidden away.Somebody rings at the door. Chris goes to open the door.It's Ted, who has come to wish them Merry Christmas, Chris looks really happy at Ted's present. Ted has worn a grey raincoat. He positions himself close to the raging fireplace. Ted asks Chris why she has never married. She is afraid that she scares men away. Ted has to go back to the village pretty soon. His father wouldn't like him visiting the Morgans. Suddenly, Elizabeth shows up and she is really pissed of at him. She doesn't want Ted to see Ben.Ted would like to do some blood test. But Ted says that it was Elizabeth herself who called him to do some on Ben, when he started to have the mania of being poisoned. He thinks that it proves that Elizabeth is very clever in any case, as that would make her look innocent.Chris keeps on tinkering around in the kitchen. She puts on some red gloves to do the dishes.Alex wants to speak to Freddie in the morning. Alex thinks that Chris is childish and so innocent that she is stupid, and she tells her to her face. Alex kisses her good night. Chris tries to make a call, but the phone makes very weird noises.Elizabeth is preparing tea, milk and honey to help herself and Freddie to sleep. Chris refuses to drink it.Chris tells her that the phone is out, but Elizabeth already knows it, blaming the storm for it. Elizabeth says that Ben didn't want to drink it either. She prepares a cup of the concoction and takes it upstairs carefully. Ben spies her waling upstairs. Elizabeth offers Freddie the cup. Freddie has a hot water bath while drinking licour and Elizabeth's preparation. Suddenly, somebody wearing Chris' kitchen gloves pull her legs from outside the bath tube. Freddie is so out of it that she lets herself go.Later, Chris sees Freddie's dead body. She screams. Alex looks out but doesn't touch her. Elizabeth also shows up, looking startled. Chris cries, Alex comforts her and Ben inquires what has happened. Elizabeth tells him that Freddie killed herself, or that it was an accident. Ben suspects Elizabeth's motives to visit Freddie on her bedroom. Elizabeth says that she couldn't have poisoned her as she has drunk another mug of it herself. However Alex goes to check it out. She can't find the mug on Elizabeth's room or the drug vials on Freddie's room.Chris checks and the telephone is still out. Alex goes to check on Ben, and Elizabeth is inside, hiding away behind the door, looking evil. Meanwhile, Alex thinks that Elizabeth is trying to kill all of them to get her hands on the whole inheritance and properties. Chris is appalled to have to stay inside the house and wait to be killed as the village is ten miles away and Jo took Alex's car to go to the airport. She wants to go walking one mile to the house of their nearest neighbour, Mrs Killian, a bed-ridden woman. Alex says that the forest has changed during the nine years they have been outside,and that she will get lost. Cut to the yellow raincoat and red wellington boots hanging on a wall. Elizabeth peeks out from a window to the departing Chris.Chris runs and runs. She stops, and hears somebody going after her because of the noise of the twigs breaking under their feet. It is somebody in the yellow raincoat carrying a pitchfork. She hides in a hole, right under the place where the stalker stops to look around.From a window, Alex sees Elizabeth coming back to the house wearing the yellow raincoat. Chris has arrived to the house where Alex and Ben are. She trips and sees a hand protruding from the soil, wearing Jo's ring. She screams. At that moment, Elizabeth shows up in a yellow raincoat claiming to be very worried about her, that she has been searching for her out of concern for her well-being. Chris runs away screaming. She goes to the house and enter it in panic. Elizabeth is still outside. Chris runs around locking doors and windows. Elizabeth enters through a basement door. Chris hides in silence while Elizabeth looks everywhere for her.Elizabeth says aloud "Christine, you are safe now." She keeps on searching for her. She goes out. Chris hears the door closing so she decides to abandon her hiding place. She walks around the house on her wet raincoat. She tries to wake up Ben, who is already dead. Elizabeth says so and Chris scrams and pushes her out of her way to leave the house. Elizabeth goes after her screaming for her to come back.A while later, she stops a car. It is Alex. Alex says that everybody always comes to her when they have problems. Chris is finally convinced that Elizabeth has killed everybody, but Alex says that Elizabeth wouldn't have killed Chris as Elizabeth didn't kill anybody.Alex wanted to be free of them all. She felt trapped being the support of everybody. Alex hits Chris, who falls rolling down a slope. Alex has to make sure that Chris is dead, so she picks up a lantern and checks.Finally, it has stopped raining.At that moment, Ted arrives in his truck. Alex cries and says that Elizabeth killed them all. Ted offers Alex his sympathy. Ted and Alex go their separate ways, Alex keen on telling her story to the police, and Ted in search of Chris.It is morning. Sheriff Nolan (Med Flory) is driving his police car with Alex inside. She still has perfect hair and clothing. She is making believe to be crying.Elizabeth looks at the entrance of Nolan and Alex in the house but doesn't say anything.Ted shows up from another room on the upper floor and he tells her that he has found Chris. She is sleeping in a warm bed. Alex goes inside crying and saying good things about Chris because she thinks Chris is dead, but Chris opens up her eyes. Alex starts screaming. Chris just stares at her and doesn't say anything.Ted and Nolan take Alex away. She stops for a second and stares at Chris, peering at her from behind the curtains. Elizabeth has been cleared of everything.Elizabeth says goodbye to Chris. Chris, still with a wound on her face, is leaving with Ted. Apparently, they have always been in love. Elizabeth tells Ted to take care of her, while she stays on the mansion with the huge property for her.Ted and Chris drive away.

Tags: violence, murder

Review:
Ever-cranky Brennan plays a father who is dying (and suspects his second wife, Harris, of doing him in.)  He sends for his four daughters (Parker, Walter, Haworth, Field) to come to his aid.
"Home For The Holidays", originally a made-for-television horror movie, is a neat little horror mystery that came a little before it's time.
Benjamin Morgan (Walter Brennan), an dying man, summons his four estranged daughters back home on Christmas Eve. The sisters include Alex (Eleanor Parker), the oldest of the group who is already staying at her father's house; Frederica (Jessica Walter, of "Play Misty For Me"), a pill-popping alcoholic who blames her father for their mother's suicide; Joanna (Jill Haworth), a somewhat stuck-up party girl; and Christine (Sally Field), the innocent one, and the youngest of the family.
When the girls arrive, their father reveals to them that his current wife, Elizabeth (Julie Harris, of "The Haunting"), who was suspected of her previous husband's death, is poisoning him slowly, and that he essentially wants his daughters to murder her.
With the phones dead and the roads washed out due to a heavy rainstorm, the sisters are trapped there while the unseen killer begins to pick them off one by one.I was really surprised at how good this film turned out to be.
Originally aired on ABC in late November 1972, "Home For The Holidays" is a solid and suspenseful little made-for-TV movie.
Not only is it original (especially if you consider the time it was written), but it also provides a good amount of shocks and some great mysteries for the audience to try and solve themselves, along with a solid sustainment of suspense.
It's no surprise that the writing is so good though, considering the film was written by Joseph Stefano, who wrote Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film classic, "Psycho".
The script is excellent and there are some great horror set-ups (including a pretty lengthy chase scene with Sally Field through the woods), plus some nice plot twists that will keep you guessing.The cast is made up of mostly female actresses, and they really are all great.
Sally Field pulls off the innocent youngster of the girls (and the main heroine) well - her performing skills were wonderful, even in her early career.
The great Julie Harris plays the mysterious, 'wicked stepmother', and does it precisely.
Jessica Walter is the frantic, pill-popping sister who resents her father, and is also very good.
The suspense factor is really the kicker for this one.Overall, "Home For The Holidays" is a good old-fashioned murder mystery set during Christmas.
If you enjoy old fashioned murder/mystery films (and would be interested in seeing a young Sally Field chased by a pitchfork-wielding murderer), this one will keep you guessing the killer's identity until the final revelation.
This holiday horror film is worth a look.
Well-done made for TV thriller is a little known but worth wild movie.Sisters are summoned home by their bed-ridden father because he believes his new wife is trying to murder him.
Now it seems that the whole family just may be on the murderer's hit list.Thanks to its great cast, this becomes a surprising good thriller, especially considering it was made for TV in 1972.
Aided along by a fairly moody atmosphere; this Christmas there's no snow, just heavy rainstorms.Sally Field, Jessica Walters, and the great Julie Harris turn in the best performances for this one.
In fact, my only real complaint about this movie is the camera operator's apparent obsession with 'zoom' shots!All around, this is a pretty decent little thriller that's worth a rainy night watch.*** out of ****.
After their father sends them a letter saying his wife is trying to poison him, the four sisters return home for Christmas,and are stalked by a pitchfork happy psychopath.
Sally Field is excellent as the "good" sister,and Jessica Walter's boozing and pill popping moments are even more over the top than her performance in "play misty for me".
Julie Harris,James Dean's love interest in the film classic "East of Eden" is also excellent as the wicked step-mother,who may or may not actually be the wicked one!
Four estranged daughters are summoned home by their ailing father who insists that his new wife is trying to murder him..
Definitely not your run-of-the-mill family/Christmas reunion tale, this surprisingly suspenseful made for TV horror flick explores the darker side of the holiday season.
The all-star cast(Sally Field, Eleanor Parker, Julie Harris, Jessica Walter, Jill Haworth, Walter Brennan) is wonderful, the direction(by John Moxey) is rock solid, and the script(by Joseph Stefano, of PSYCHO fame) is a good, effectively creepy little story..
The great thing about these television films from the 60's and 70's is the ability they had to pull together high quality performers that you normally wouldn't see cast together.
While this one manages to gather an awesome group of actresses the absurdity of casting them as sisters and Julie Harris as their stepmother, since none of them favor each other in the least nor Walter Brennan who is supposed to be their father, is a head scratcher.
To add fuel to this particular fire is the fact that Sally Field and Eleanor Parker had just played mother and daughter the previous year in Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring.
In addition to a solid cast and good acting, this TV movie creates a surprisingly early slasher atmosphere, replete with a mysterious hooded killer, wet rain, and woodsy setting.
Julie Harris, Sally Field, Jessica Walter, and Eleanor Parker are all superb.For those who like their Yuletide cheer mingled from time to time with a good thriller or slasher flick, try this kissing cousin to Bob Clark's "Black Christmas." It's sure to bring a smile to your face around the warm, Christmas fire!.
Four daughters return to the old homestead when they receive a note from their elderly father saying his new wife is slowly poisoning him to death.
The daughters are an eclectic bunch; an alcoholic obsessed with the memory of their dead mother, a many-times married blonde, the eldest sister who constantly frets over them and the youngest who doesn't seem to know what's going on through most of the film, played by a very young Sally Field.
Four sisters come 'Home for the Holidays' when it appears that their father is dying.
Their father tells them that his new wife Elizabeth is slowly poisoning him to death, and that he summoned them all there to kill her before she kills him!
They just think he's a silly old man, but eventually the sister's begin being stalked (and some of them even killed) by a person in a bright yellow raincoat.
It's a Christmas murder mystery, and with seemingly unhinged Elizabeth as the main suspect...
will anyone survive?I enjoyed 'Home for the Holidays', it's even become a Christmas tradition here at my place to watch it.
Sally Field puts in a good performance as the good sister Christine, and Julie Harris does well as Elizabeth.'Home for the Holidays' has an interesting twist to the end of the mystery, which most people could probably see coming a mile away.
Above-average movie-of-the-week suspense film.
I've seen this movie many times and structurally the story is very well plotted, it's a good creepy mystery.
I think it would have made a great feature film, but it still turned out very well as a TV-Movie.
I've seen this movie at least a dozen times and always enjoy every single frame of it.Basically four sisters are summoned to their ailing father's sickbed and are told by him that his new wife is slowly poisoning him to death.
Eventually, I found a DVD of it on iOffer, and it still holds up today!A dying old man summons home his four daughters at Christmas because he suspects that his new wife is poisoning him.
Rating 3 *** out of 4HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS is a good suspense thriller.
That this film was an inept rip-off of FRIDAY THE 13th when it is not because HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS was made before FRIDAY THE 13TH.
So do not be fouled HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS is a chiller with Sally Field and Julie Harris.
Joseph Stefanno ( PSYCHO ) has a good script and the director has a lot of tension involed in the film.
He thinks that his second wife Julie Harris is trying to poison him.The sisters cover quite a span of years.
From Eleanor Parker the oldest to Sally Field the youngest with Jessica Walter and Jill Haworth in the middle.
Brennan did not look well, I suspect he was having real health issues.Fans of Gothic horror and any and all of the cast should be pleased..
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 plot = Four sisters are summoned back to they're family home by their sick father who suspects that his current wife is slowly poisoning him Though the sisters disagree on the validity of their Father's rantings, it soon becomes clear that someone wants to silence the girls as well!
There's nothing like a good murder at Christmas time.
There's nothing like a good murder at Christmas time.
An old Gothic mansion, mystery and suspense are all the makings for a good horror, in this early 70's TV movie.
Although not bloody or gory, it's the performances that makes this movie work, especially from the 4 sisters, we get Alex played beautifully by Eleanor Parker whose the oldest sister who watches over her three younger siblings ever since they're mother died, then we have the party girl Jo (Played by British Actress Jill Haworth), Freddie the tragic pill popping alcoholic whose never got over her mother's death (A wonderfully hammy performance by Jessica Walter) and the youngest sister the sweet naive Christine (Played by Sally Field) who would go on to bigger and better things.
We also have Julie Harris who plays the step mother who was once accused of poisoning her last husband, could she be doing it again.The dark eerie settings of the mansion and the tension between the sisters really makes this movie work mixes up the horror/thriller themes of the 50's and 60's and before (old dark house; sibling rivalry; American Gothic; grand inheritances and murderous motives) and what was to become the slasher standards of the 80's.
Sally Field makes a wonderful heroine like when she's getting stalked in the hoods by someone with a pitchfork and yellow raincoat.
This movie was very low budget and it does show in some parts and also, this movie does get quite boring at times, but other than that, this relatively unknown thriller makes for good viewing..
This was one suspenseful movie with an all star cast.
It is quite different in that it has murder, suspense, mystery with a holiday theme.
Home for the Holidays is a 1972 American made-for-television horror film directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, produced by Aaron Spelling and starring Sally Field, Eleanor Parker, Julie Harris, Jessica Walter and Walter Brennan which premiered on ABC on November 28, 1972.
The plot focuses on a wealthy father on his deathbed who invites his four daughters home for Christmas and tells them he suspects his second wife of poisoning him.
Shortly after, the girls learn that their stepmother was accused of killing her first husband, and they begin to fall prey to a killer dressed in a yellow rain slicker.The film has a minor following.
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS is the story of the Morgan family, and their Christmas reunion.
Patriarch, Benjamin Morgan (Walter Brennan) is near death, which is the only reason his daughters, Frederica (Jessica Walter- PLAY MISTY FOR ME), Joanna (Jill Haworth- IT!), Christine (Sally Field- SYBIL), and Alex (Eleanor Parker- CAGED) have reunited.
They have reason to believe that his current wife, Elizabeth (Julie Harris- THE HAUNTING) just might be trying to speed up Benjamin's departure.
The sisters already suspect that Elizabeth had something to do w/ their mother's untimely death, and are now asked to commit their own unspeakable act, in order to save their father's life.
Sort of an updated "old dark house" suspense / thriller, this made-for-TV movie is a wonderful example of the above average quality of such movies of the period.
The composer was George Aliceson(!) Tipton - a prolific creator of soundtracks back then.Two household names of the 70s appear in this ABC movie of the week: Sally Field and Jessica Walter.
Having been somewhat type-cast as a neurotic, Walter plays an alcoholic here, and she does not survive to the final credits.A feel good drama for the frequently boring Christmas/New Year's Holidays, I dare say..
Yours truly is a man of many silly traditions, and one of them is that I insist on watching one Christmas-themed horror movie per year during the Holiday period!
At first I was thrilled to have stumbled upon this "Home for the Holidays", but in all honesty it's only a very standard and numeric whodunit TV-thriller and there just happens to stand a Christmas tree in the entrance hall of the house where most of the film is set.
Apart from the tree and the holiday reference in the title, "Home for the Holidays" isn't at all what you expect from a Christmas horror flick.
Benjamin Morgan begs for his four adult daughters to return home because he's convinced that his second wife Elizabeth is slowly poisoning him to death.
The daughters believe him, because Elizabeth's first husband also died under mysterious circumstances, but still they're reluctant to help their father.
Shortly after, a murderous psychopath dressed in a raincoat and waving around a pitchfork makes it clear that nobody of the Morgan family is supposed to survive this Christmas.
One good glimpse at all the faces of the lead players is enough to guess who the killer is, and when and his/her motivations get revealed at the end, it makes little to no sense.
The main reason to track down and watch "Home for the Holidays" is undoubtedly the female top-cast!
Jessica Walter, Jill Hayworth, Eleanor Parker and Julie Harris all give away superb performances.
But the girl standing in the spotlights the most here is Sally Field as the youngest and most innocent daughter Christine.
Sally was 26 years old around the time of release, but here she looks like an adorable angel not a day over 15..
When the film begins, Benjamin (Walter Brennan) has brought his four daughters home using various pretenses.
His real goal is to gather them together to ask them to do him a favor...murder his wife Elizabeth (Julie Harris).
Who is responsible?This is a good made for TV film with one big problem...the casting of the daughters.
You are expected to believe Sally Field (26) and Eleanor Parker (53) are sisters!
The plot is interesting and the film worth your time...though I did predict the ending..
By the way, Sally Field looked about 15 years old in here..
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"..
That's exactly what transpires here with three-time Oscar Winner Walter Brennan begging his four estranged daughters to come back for Christmas, concerned that his second wife (Julie Harris) is slowly poisoning him.
The dour Harris has great reason to be so severe; If you were being accused of attempted murder and had already been through the same situation with your first spouse, ending up in a mental institution, you'd be dour, too.The daughters are sensible oldest Eleanor Parker, self-centered Jill Haworth, substance abuser Jessica Walter and innocent baby Sally Field.
Parker is already home when the others arrive, and with the glimpse of Harris standing on a staircase in the background, looking very much like Judith Anderson in "Rebecca", you know that the distrust between the step-family members is incredibly high.
What I remember most of all is the sound of the tinsel tinkling on the Christmas tree every time someone walked by and then Sally Field running past the tree to escape from the killer.
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).