To me, this movie is perfection.

best movie i've ever seen.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

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.

Katherine Ross and Sam Elliot star as the couple who are two successful architects who leave the USA to accept a job in England, Whilst arriving there taking in the beautiful country side, they have an accident as their motorbike crashes they accept a lift from the mysterious Jason Mountolive John Standing who invites the duo back to his estate for 'Tea' but the pair unwittingly become embroiled in mysterious goings on at a stately house situated in the typical horror films fashion of ' the middle of nowhere' 'the Legacy' refers to six heirs who are all waiting in line to inherit a vast fortune but all is not what it seems as the respective heirs start to die in mysterious circumstances.The Who's Roger Daltery has a small part which arguably could of been played by Mick Jagger!, Genre favorite Charles 'Rocky Horror' Gray also stars in this largely unseen British production which has surprisingly has not been updated! there are some terrific or is that horrific? gore sequences Horror fans will enjoy! witness the now infamous pool scene!

The first time I ever saw this one, I must have been barely in my mid-teens. And I didn't like it very much (hey, I preferred my horror filled with slimy monsters and lots of blood & gore back then). But some things about this movie stuck with me over the years (especially the infamous 'tracheatomy-scene' did, amongst other things). And I just knew that was a good thing. So you could say I was ready for a more "mature viewing" of this movie. And yes, it's actually pretty good! I didn't mind it was a bit slow during the first half, because it builds up a good atmosphere wrapped in a fine mystery. Some people in their user-comments called it a "haunted house movie", but that couldn't possibly be further from the truth, as far as I'm concerned. It's a film about the supernatural, yes, but the only 'haunted house'-related thing it does have, is indeed one big, creepy looking mansion on an isolated location on UK grounds. Margaret Walsh (played by a beautiful looking Katharine Ross) is summoned to the UK for an architect-assignment. Her friend Pete (Sam Elliot) accompanies her. Circumstances lead her to the aforementioned mansion, where she is obliged to stay the weekend. Then 5 other guests arrive and they all seem to know why they are there, but Margaret doesn't. It's up to her and Pete to find out, because it doesn't take long before the guests start dying one by one. And something inside the mansion isn't willing to let her go... That's really all you need to know before going into this movie. The death-scenes aren't particularly gory, but they were sort of original at the time (1978), and there's even a catch to them... Very happy I did finally re-watch this film, as I seem to have slightly misjudged it in my teen-days.

Really not a lot of horror going on in this one, however from what I see of other reviews this was just supposed to be a horror remake of a crime classic and it shows. There is one truly scary scene in this film and it involves the young lady in the pool, but other than that scene this film falls into a long line of horror movies from the 70's and early 80's that had potential, but were defeated by to much talking and not enough horror. This one starts out with a young lady and her boyfriend (I think it was her boyfriend) having some sort of accident where they end up being invited to some mansion where a whole crowd of people are assembling in the hopes of being named the successor to some guy who is dying upstairs. Funny, this very guy is the one who invited the young lady and the gentlemen to his home and he seemed just fine when he invited them. So on to the house where people, other than the pool victim, die in rather uninteresting ways and a new heir is on their way to being chosen. At one point the girl and guy try to get out of the situation, but the town seems to have a hold on them or something, you can not get away from this situation all that easily. Near the end though there is very little horror to write home about and the crossbow scene just punches that point home that this movie just is not really a horror movie at all