The greatest movie ever made..!

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Maggie Walsh (Katherine Ross, The Stepford Wives and The Swarm) and Pete Danner (a really young Sam Elliott, Mask and The Big Lebowski) get a strange call for their interior decorating business. They are to go to England for an anonymous client, but they have misgivings about leaving Los Angeles. Those go away when the client dies, leaving behind pre-paid airfare.They're in England for all of a spot of tea when they are almost killed by a limousine carrying Jason Mountolive, who takes them to his gigantic home called Ravenhurst.I love this description of the people Maggie and Pete meet at Ravenhurst — "A millionaire, a million-dollar prostitute, a star-maker, a nation-killer, a woman whose lusts are as cold as graveyard snow." They're all the beneficiaries of his estate, there to decide who will get what when the old man dies.Maggie is shocked, because as far as she knows, Mountolive was just alive. Everyone is summoned to his bedroom, filled with sterile walls and a life support system. You can't see the old man any longer — but a gnarled hand reaches out and gives Maggie the Mountolive ring — one she can't take off and one everyone else is already wearing.All manner of accidents and deaths befall the cast members. Pete is nearly killed by a scalding shower (and if you like Sam Elliot, your pulse will be inflamed by this scene). Maria, a swimmer, drowns. Clive (Roger Daltry from The Who), a music mogul, dies from a combination of choking and a gory tracheotomy. Karl (Charles Gray, Diamonds Are Forever, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Devil Rides Out) dies in an awesome scene when a spark from a fireplace ignites him, sending him curled up and burnt black. Barbara is killed by an exploding mirror. And Jacques tries to kill Maggie and Pete, thinking they are behind it all, but his gun blows up in his face and he falls to his death.A series of clippings reveals that each of the guests had been implicated in a scandal or crime, but Mountolive saved them. He comes from a long line of devil worshippers. In fact, his parents were burned at the stake!Maggie is Mountolive's great-granddaughter, so she meets with the dying man, who reveals that he killed the others as a sacrifice to Satan so that she can get his powers. Then, she will have six heirs when her time is up. Pete tries to stop her, but it is too late. The staff have all bowed to her and she is now the new owner of Ravenhurst and all of the powers that come with it.She gives Pete a ring that bonds itself to his finger as her first heir and tells him that it's time to do anything she wants.Director Richard Marquand (Return of the Jedi) alternates here between breezy romance, ala Hart to Hart, and gory spectacle. It's a strange blend but it's rather enjoyable.Plus, it has an opening song, "Another Side of Me" (performed by Kiki Dee) that is so late 70's, it should give you cocaine while you listen to it.Read more at bit.ly/2z6FXtS

This can't seem to decide if it wants to be a kitch 70s Hammer Horror-em-up, or a glossy romantic US TV movie. Slick moustache man heart throb Sam Elliot clearly thinks he's in the latter, while Roger Daltrey bounds onto the screen like he's auditioning for a part in 'Eastenders: The Pantomime'. To say The Legacy is uneven is putting it mildly, no two characters appear to realise they're in the same film. Shove them all in a grand old mansion in the English countryside, add a touch of supernatural hokum, some surprisingly inventive death scenes, a whole lot of messing around doing nothing, the most pointless random car drive scene in movie history, a cat which has more screen time than half the cast yet has no reason to be involved in the film, and enjoy - but not that much because it drags after an hour or so.

American Interior decorator Katharine Ross and architect boyfriend Sam Elliott are commissioned for a job in England. While touring the beautiful English countryside, they are in a traffic accident with a limo containing filthy rich John Standing, who insists that the banged up couple experience his hospitality at his grand manor while their motorcycle is being repaired. Once there, the two are joined by an array of flamboyant guests, who all seem to owe some kind of allegiance to Standing, who Ross is puzzled to hear mentioned is bedridden and at death's door. Apparently called forth to receive some kind of death bed bequests, the guests die grisly deaths one by one, as attempts to escape from the manor grounds are frustrated at every turn.Released back in the late 1970s, The Legacy was a modest box office success despite some rather lackluster reviews, but few people seemingly remember it. It is hard to understand any ill will towards it. The story is a twist on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None with some supernatural elements added to good effect. This story has been used often throughout cinema history for good reason - because it is effective and solid. The death scenes are memorably grisly without the stomach-turning pretensions of the modern day torture porn proliferating the screen since the success of Saw.Director Richard Marquand has a decent command of atmosphere and his actors, and captures the beautiful English countryside in all its glory. The film moves along at a brisk clip. He establishes a respectable modicum of tension and provides enough of a showcase for some of the suspense sequences to wrap the viewer up in the story. The sequences with the woman trapped beneath the surface of a pool and a wayward fireplace log that causes a rather shocking demise are suitably memorable. I also like the sequence where Ross and Elliott launch an escape attempt only to find every single road leading them in circles back to the mansion.The cast is strong and appealing. English veterans like Standing, Charles Gray, and Hildegarde Neil are well cast. As is Margaret Tyzack as an enigmatic caregiver who seems to have some sort of symbiotic relationship with the manor's sinister cat. Roger Daltrey is on hand in an attention-getting glorified cameo as one of the ill-fated guests.Ross and Elliott are both immensely appealing and sympathetic as the trapped fish-out-of-water Americans. Ross does a credible job of rendering her character's mounting panic palpable, which she moves nicely to frustration and then ultimately acceptance of the predicament. Elliott is really not an essential character plot-wise, but he shares tremendous chemistry with Ross and provides a note of likable stability among the more eccentric house guests. Plus one is never quite sure where he will ultimately fit in the final denouement.If any real criticisms can be leveled at the film, it would be predictability. It is not really a shock who the last person standing is and it is something we have suspected all along - indeed the film does not do much to keep it a secret. Yet to say that this robs the film of suspense would be erroneous as the viewing journey to get from point A to B is largely entertaining. By contrast, I think this traditional (albeit predictable) rendering of the material is far more suspenseful and enjoyable then the more recent modern rendering found in Identity, where an overly ambitious mid-plot twist finds the suspense petering out like a deflating tire.I would heartily recommend this to fans of thrillers, mysteries or genre films without any compunction. Ironically, I have found that older viewers seem to have a higher appreciation of it than younger ones, perhaps due to its more traditional trappings.

The title might give one the erroneous impression that this is another 'haunted house' film in the tradition of THE HAUNTING (1963), while the theatrical poster – with its feline imagery – gives rise to comparisons with THE TOMB OF LIGEIA (1964); ultimately, it is more like THE OMEN (1976)-meets-SUSPIRIA (1977), with a dash of AND THEN THERE WERE NONE (1945) thrown in for good measure (albeit no discernible reason)!Typically, we find American stars (in this case, Katharine Ross and Sam Elliott) lost in a British setting: they are summoned there for a mysterious $50,000 contract but are apparently diverted from their destination by an automobile accident – yet, when the man responsible invites them to his large mansion, it is obvious that they were expected! Ross, in fact, is revealed to be a direct descendant of – and dead ringer for – a 17th century witch who had been burned at the stake (but conveniently left behind her memoirs!). The current landlord, John Standing (recently seen in the contemporaneous THE CLASS OF MISS MacMICHAEL), is actually the original witch's son(!) – but he is slowly losing his power and reverting to his true decrepit age: the sight of him bed-ridden in silhouette evokes memories of the ancient hag at the ballet school in the afore-mentioned SUSPIRIA. He is doted upon by sinister nurse Margaret Tyzack (who can also turn into Standing's familiar – a white cat! – at will) and whose scrupulous devotion to her charge recalls the Antichrist's nanny in THE OMEN; for the record, Tyzack died only recently, and the same is true of co-scriptwriter Jimmy Sangster – in whose honor this viewing was held to begin with.The other guests (who turn up at the mansion in a helicopter), form with Ross, the six disciples who have been blessed by Standing over the years in exchange for their service: Charles Gray (as a former Nazi adept at shooting arrows), Roger Daltrey (ideally cast as a jovial but sarcastic music producer), Lee Montague, Hildegarde Neil and Marianna Broome (an Olympic swimmer-turned-nude model in her last film before retiring to paint!). The catch here is that all the others had been responsible of some crime which will soon come back to haunt them, so that when Ross takes over, Standing asks her to replace them with new acolytes/victims. The deaths themselves are quite inventive (drowning, choking, combustion, shotgun malfunction) and at least one of them downright creepy (the mirror sequence) but, as I said, do not make much sense especially when it seems that Standing is always hovering in the vicinity when they happen – though Tyzack is at least partly responsible for Daltrey's bloody asphyxiation, whereas Ross notices a pattern in her always being the last to interact with the victim prior to their demise.While the heroine does not immediately recognize – or even accept – her legacy, her boyfriend is seen as an inconvenient presence all along, so that there is immediately an attempt to get him out of the picture by having him scalded while taking a shower and then injured when breaking through the shower glass!; later, he is also attacked by a pack of dogs which, again, is a nod to THE OMEN. Still, the two subsequently make numerous attempts to escape, on horseback and by stealing Standing's Rolls Royce but, eerily, every road they take only leads them back to the mansion (a Bunuelian touch though probably unintentional). In the end, Ross decides to stay and embrace her destiny and apparently convinces Elliott too (after having almost had his head blown off, taken a fall down the stairs along with Tyzack-cat, and having also made a shambles of Standing's room – filled as it was with hospital equipment – and even burned the old man to a crisp!). The film benefits from having two top British cameramen on board (Dick Bush and Alan Hume), but the score by Michael J. Lewis is less successful especially since it incorporates a romantic ballad sung by Kiki Dee over the opening credits!