While this is not considered one of the better horror films ever made it none the less is a fun one to watch and it's because of the great actors that lend their craft and screen persona. Story is about four elderly gentlemen in the New England area and they share a 50 year old secret that continues to haunt them. The four of them have formed a private club called the Chowder Society and they have known each other most of their lives. The four are Sears James (John Houseman), John Jaffrey (Melvyn Douglas), Ricky Hawthorne (Fred Astaire) and Edward Wanderley (Douglas Fairbanks jr.) and Edward has a son named David (Craig Wasson) who mysteriously has died from falling out a window. Edward's other son Don (Wasson again) comes to the funeral and he thinks his brothers death is too strange to be an accident and he heard that David was involved with a woman that Don also knew. One day Edward dies from falling off of a bridge and now Don is convinced that the woman is responsible. Don gets with Ricky and tells him of his affair in Florida with a woman named Alma Mobley (Alice Krige) who acted very strange and this was why he would not marry her. Ricky gets John and Sears and the three of them tell Don of what happened 50 years ago. The four of them met a woman named Eva Galli (Krige again) and they would all get together and have fun. Eva and Edward have a more intimate relationship but one night they have a fight and Edward pushes Eva who falls and hits her head. They all think she's dead and decide to hide the evidence. They put her body in a car and push it into a lake but as the car starts to sink they see Eva still alive and trapped in the backseat. None of them can swim and are too drunk to save her so she dies trapped underwater. After Don hears this and presents a locket from Alma the four of them are sure its Eva who has come back for revenge.
*****SPOILER ALERT*****
This film was directed by John Irvin who is a competent director but he doesn't lend much to this film in terms of style. There are some genuinely spooky moments but these scenes only come sporadically during the course of the film. The big asset for this film of course is the great cast. But not only are the big four wonderful to watch, it's also a great opportunity to view a very young Alice Krige in a very good performance. There are some gratuitous nude scenes required of her and she exhibits some terrific raw sexuality with Wasson. We understand completely his attraction to her. She's mysterious and wild but we also understand why he won't marry her. She refuses to tell him about herself and he walks away. Krige has always been a terrific actress but she never really had another big role that made people stand up and take notice. The closest she came was in "Star Trek: First Contact" where she played the Borg Queen. One of the reasons this isn't considered a great horror film is that it's hard to swallow the fact that four of the great and sophisticated actors in history are in a film where there is a great amount of nudity. Fred Astaire and nudity, Houseman and nudity...they don't seem to belong in the same film. Another part of the film that was hard to figure was why Alma/Eva pops up in Florida to seduce Wasson. Why does she go all the way there? Why not just kill him? Why not just pop up in New England and get her revenge? And why does her ghost recruit the two lowlifes to help her? It's never really explained and this hurts the film in the way it tells it's story. But I do think there are some effective scenes and it's hard to shake the image at the end of the film where the car is dragged out of the lake and Astaire opening the car door where the corpse of Eva slowly emerges seemingly on it's own and falls to the ground. It's a chilling scene and there are enough of those moments to give this film an eerie atmosphere. Also, actor Tim Choate (The First Time) plays young Ricky in the flashback scenes. Not a classic but with this cast it probably doesn't need to be. Well worth a look by all.
*****SPOILER ALERT*****
This film was directed by John Irvin who is a competent director but he doesn't lend much to this film in terms of style. There are some genuinely spooky moments but these scenes only come sporadically during the course of the film. The big asset for this film of course is the great cast. But not only are the big four wonderful to watch, it's also a great opportunity to view a very young Alice Krige in a very good performance. There are some gratuitous nude scenes required of her and she exhibits some terrific raw sexuality with Wasson. We understand completely his attraction to her. She's mysterious and wild but we also understand why he won't marry her. She refuses to tell him about herself and he walks away. Krige has always been a terrific actress but she never really had another big role that made people stand up and take notice. The closest she came was in "Star Trek: First Contact" where she played the Borg Queen. One of the reasons this isn't considered a great horror film is that it's hard to swallow the fact that four of the great and sophisticated actors in history are in a film where there is a great amount of nudity. Fred Astaire and nudity, Houseman and nudity...they don't seem to belong in the same film. Another part of the film that was hard to figure was why Alma/Eva pops up in Florida to seduce Wasson. Why does she go all the way there? Why not just kill him? Why not just pop up in New England and get her revenge? And why does her ghost recruit the two lowlifes to help her? It's never really explained and this hurts the film in the way it tells it's story. But I do think there are some effective scenes and it's hard to shake the image at the end of the film where the car is dragged out of the lake and Astaire opening the car door where the corpse of Eva slowly emerges seemingly on it's own and falls to the ground. It's a chilling scene and there are enough of those moments to give this film an eerie atmosphere. Also, actor Tim Choate (The First Time) plays young Ricky in the flashback scenes. Not a classic but with this cast it probably doesn't need to be. Well worth a look by all.