Grimossfer
Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%
Lucia Ayala
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
Married Baby
Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
Paul Evans
I enjoy this film very very much. As a teen I can remember this being on constantly on BBC2 Friday nights. By today's standards of course it's tame as a horror, but look beyond that and it's actually a really clever, very well acted movie. The story itself is very dark, any film that involved the Devil would be. I love the village scenes, when Maggie and Pete try to escape in the car but are trapped and always end up back at the house, it's so clever. Elements of And then there were none, as one by one the gathered guests start to die. I can remember having a few bad dreams about the mirror scene (I was only about 9 or 10.) I particularly liked Katherine Ross, there was a soft sincerity about her, I also really liked Margaret Tyzack's cat nurse. 8/10 it's a very good film, it creaks in parts, but on the whole it ticks the boxes well.
fedor8
Perhaps the reason why Lucas hired Marquand to direct "Jedi". This guy even managed to turn a Satanic thriller into a semi-cheerful romantic piece.And here you thought all along that Satanists only kidnapped people and poultry that it wanted to use as sacrifice. Not always. Katherine Ross gets a very sweet deal by being abducted, getting no less than limitless power from the whole ordeal. "I can do anything I want" - her last line. Did that include hiring better acting coaches? If Jason wanted Margaret (Ross) to come to England, why the road accident? He could have just told her to show up at his address. No need for all that overly dramatic hoopla. Seems like a rather complicated, unnecessary, roundabout way of meeting someone.Looks like the TL's producers were more concerned with promoting Kiki Dee's crappy single than turning this into a quality product. "Another Side Of Me", a Dee track that opens the movie, in no way, shape, or form suits this genre. It wasn't just played at the outset, but during the American couple's escape attempt as well, which played out very strangely as a result. A somewhat cheerful, romantic semi-ballad as a background for an escape scene from the House of Satan? Even Ed Wood knew better.Sam Elliot's character makes little sense. He reacts to murders and other bizarre goings-on as if they were mere nuisances. His reactions are almost non-chalant at times, as if being abducted by rich British Satanists is a process he undergoes 2-3 times every year. His reaction to being almost killed by an arrow? A smirk and apparently no grudge against the guy who did it. I don't really see much panic in either of them, actually, although to be fair Katherine Ross's acting coaches had been on strike just before TL was to start shooting. And I'd really like to know why Margaret simply didn't ASK the people there what the hell was going on! That would have made matters easier. She takes part in a strange group "séance", meets Jason the 1000 year-old man, is promised a vague "inheritance" - and still she asks nobody anything. Instead, the couple makes vague plans for escape attempts. Duh.There are many things here that simply don't hold any water, like that hot-water shower scene, just one example. Was that a murder attempt gone wrong? Surely a bunch of powerful Satanists can do better than pour hot water over a strong, young man in the hopes that he dies from it. Duh. Sort of like throwing darts at a buffalo or immersing an elephant into a bird-fountain. Half-hearted, badly planned, silly.It would have been much simpler for Jason to have informed Margaret years earlier that she was a reincarnation of a witch and all that. Nor do we quite understand how it is that she wasn't aware of who she was all that time.So if you ever get abducted by a Satanic cult, sit back and relax, don't fight them, because it might all be for your benefit, as it was for Margaret.Nevertheless, TL has nice scenery, photography and a plot that strays somewhat from the usual Satanic-cult flicks, with touches of Agatha Christie almost.
Kieran Green
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!
bragant
THE LEGACY is a film with many, many flaws - not the least of which are a weak and clueless protagonist with less screen time than the male lead (always a mistake in this kind of film), uneven pacing and and a script containing plot holes so large that one can drive a lorry right through them! That said, director Richard Marquand indeed accomplishes what he sets out to do - create a genre-bending mix of country-house-mystery, gorefest and BBC-family-melodrama which zooms along so quickly one hardly notices the flaws on the first go-round because one is too busy being entertained! Katharine Ross stars as "Maggie Walsh," a sweet California decorator summoned to rural England - ostensibly to take a decorating job for which she has already been paid in full (to her own surprise) a rather large sum. Accompanied by her Significant Other, Pete (played with classic Marlboro-Man machismo by the hirsute and callipygous Sam Eliott), Maggie duly heads off to the UK, only to become involved in a road accident which totals Pete's motorcycle and leaves them stranded at Ravenhurst, the remote manor of the other party to the mishap, elegant landowner Jason Mountolive (played with superb menace by John Standing). The American couple are very surprised when they arrive at Mountolive's house only to find a room already prepared for them by Mountolive's combination housekeeper/home health aide/shapeshifting familiar Nurse Adams - as if they were expected guests rather than accidental pick-ups. A quick test of their new Jacobean 4-poster canopy bed perks up Maggie & Pete's tense mood until other guests start arriving - all of whom appear to have been expecting Maggie's presence in their midst, which only increases Pete's suspicion of these smooth Europeans. Mountolive does not appear for dinner, and the other guests express great surprise to learn that their reclusive and deathly ill host has in fact met Maggie in person already. Suddenly, one of Mountolive's guests dies horribly. The shock loosens tongues and Maggie learns from conversing with the other guests that all of them are beholden to Jason in one way or another for their worldly success, that he is dying, and the time has come for a new heir or heirs. Eventually, Maggie is summoned to Jason's rooms for a private audience. Approaching the sick man's veiled bedside, Maggie is scared out of her wits when she is grasped by a wizened, clawed hand which forces a signet-ring onto her finger. After she realizes that the ring cannot be taken off, Maggie listens to her suspicious boyfriend and agrees to leave, only to find that they are somehow unable to do so - no matter which road they take, the path always doubles back to return them to Jason's mansion, but Maggie is getting caught up in the spirit of things now, so only Pete seems to mind that they are trapped on the estate. Soon, more deaths occur among the guests as part of the selection process, and in due course of time, Maggie learns that she is in fact the reincarnation of Jason Mountolive's mother - a witch and Satanist named Lady Margaret Walsingham who was burnt at the stake hundreds of years earlier. Jason himself is the designee of his mother's legacy - a legacy not just of wealth and property, but of witchcraft and Satanism - and must be at least 350 years old. Finally dying, he must transmit the legacy to a new generation...After the last bit of human competition is removed via yet another strange death, Maggie chooses to accept her destiny and mind-meld with the dying Jason, embracing her heritage of horror and Satanism and becoming the new "Lady Margaret," mistress of the Ravenhurst estate and all it represents. Pete survives and accepts his new role as Lady Margaret's consort, allowing her to slip an unremovable signet-ring onto his finger in the final moments of the film. Now Maggie has everything - money, land, position, title, her preferred mate and Satanic powers - and one can only imagine what she'll get up to! Of course, none of this makes much sense, but it is directed with such panache that somehow one doesn't mind. Script flaws are legion and far too much time is spent on the Sam Eliott character but the visuals are rich and atmospheric - the Jacobean country-house setting is especially appropriate - and so suggestive that they almost make up for the disjointed script and senseless plot. Scenes like Jason giving Maggie the ring, the attempted escape, and anything involving Nurse Adams keep the whole thing going. Amusingly, Pete's Marlboro-Man-Machismo winds up being completely ineffectual in the face of aristocratic European witchcraft - the final scene where an enraged Pete destroys Jason's bedchamber in a vain attempt to save Maggie from a fate she herself now freely accepts is a perfect lesson in the limitations of brute force as a means of problem-solving. There is something very satisfying about a movie in which the "Rambo" antics of the Typically-Macho-American-male lead are treated as the harmless play of a child and the character is shown as a buffoon rather than a role model, and it is doubly satisfying because this is a movie in which the female lead actually accepts a new life as Satan's disciple and not only survives, but gets everything she wants as well. It's one of the most unusual "happy endings" ever scripted - and one of the most enjoyable! Don't expect plausibility or a coherent plot from this one - just enjoy the creepy atmosphere, fine acting, and striking images on a cold rainy night and you'll have a very pleasant evening of thrills and chills. An extremely entertaining film that practically cries out to be remade...soon...Enjoy!
