kijii Our Mother's House is a strange movie. Almost the entire movie takes place within one contemporary English house and hinges on seven closely-aged children, all totally devoted to their deeply religious mother. When their mother dies near the beginning of the movie, the children decide to bury her in the garden and live off of her pension checks which arrive regularly. One of the children, Jiminee (Mark Lester), learns how to forge his mother's signature to cash the pension checks. The children soon release the housekeeper, Elsa (Margaret Leclere), so that they can live alone without adult supervision. Even though they continue to go to school, none of them mentions that there is no adult in the house. Whenever this strange family of children needs counseling from an adult, one of the young girls, Diana (Pamela Franklin) is able to channel her in a backyard room that they call "the tabernacle." All the children seem to know about their mother's absentee husband, Charlie Hook (Dirk Bogarde), but no one seems to want to contact him until he is absolutely needed. Bogarde only has a small amount of time on screen, but it is one of his the most unusual roles.

Default Name Honestly, I'm baffled by the current 7.4 rating of this film on IMDb. If you've read the novel by Julian Gloag, you wouldn't rate this film a seven or higher. That is to say, I criticize the film due to the writers', Jeremy Brooks and Haya Harareet, lack of attention to details, or omits them, and the changes to major plot points from the novel. As you read the novel, you begin to see the chinks in their family structure. However, the writers fail to convey the tension that exist from the division within the family. This is definitely an important aspect of the story which gives us insight into their relationship with one another. Conversely, the writers only focus on Elsa's aversion to Charlie Hook. Moreover, I can nitpick about Diana's hair not being brown in the novel or Dunstan who rarely wears his glasses in the film or Hubert who didn't share a bedroom with Jiminee in the novel or the name change of the teacher and the housekeeper in the film. But it won't matter to those who haven't read the novel. In my opinion, this is an inadequate film adaption because the writers have done the novel a disservice. That is, the writers seemingly rush through the source material and present the information in a disorganized manner.

christopher-underwood The reason few have heard of this film is because it is impossible to categorise. Made a few years after the same director made The Innocents and with much of the same sense of mystery and wonder but also the same fear of discovering just too much underneath. The swinging sixties seem a long way off in this almost Dickensian comic tragedy and much of the action seems to evoke the 50s and all those pre war skeletons tumbling out of creaking closets. Hints of incest and worse are probably the main reasons that this has all but disappeared but its a shame because all the children perform remarkably, as do Dirk Bogarde and Yootha Joyce. Immaculate direction, fine music and a wonderful script.

oyoukid True this movie is close to a classic but it's so darkly chilling and gloomy that it was hard to tolerate. The performances of some of the kids were so intense that I wonder how they were effected. Talk about child actors spiraling downward. That poor little Gerty must be a basket case. One reviewer shares my sentiments in perceptively calling 'Our Mother's House' an "ancestor of 'The Cement Garden'." As a child my daughter was traumatized when I took her to see 'Cement Garden' and she still reminds me that it damaged her psyche. So, despite excellent portrayals by talented, professional young actors I would advise against exposing children, even horror/thriller jaded kids of today, to this dark, creepy story.