Leofwine_draca THE LEGACY is no masterwork but as one of a string of haunted house flicks (including THE HAUNTING and LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE) it's an acceptable enough slice of horror. This one was a British film, written by Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster, featuring a couple of imported American leads and an Agatha Christie-style inheritance plot.The story sees a group of characters trapped together in a creepy old house and assailed by weird events and violent deaths. In an eye on keeping up with modern trends, the death scenes are quite elaborate and gruesome, perhaps inspired by the likes of THE OMEN. In addition, there's a fair wealth of action too, with car chases thrown into the mix as various characters try to escape their predicament. It's an unusual concoction, but somehow it all hangs together, just about.Katharine Ross (THE STEPFORD WIVES) and Sam Elliott star as the rather boring leads. The two would later go on to marry and indeed are still married, and it's clear they have an obvious charisma together. However, as is so often with these things, the supporting cast is more interesting than the leads. Roger Daltrey has a small but memorable turn, and Charles Gray is as sinister as ever. I did like John Standing's posh host too. Keeping things moving along is director Richard Marquand, who would later go on to helm RETURN OF THE JEDI.

Mr_Ectoplasma "The Legacy," based on a novel of the same name, has Margaret Walsh (Katharine Ross) and her boyfriend Pete (Sam Elliott) taking a mysterious interior decorating job in England for $50,000. After arriving, the two go on a motorcycle trip across the countryside, and are run off the road by a billionaire in his Rolls Royce. Invited to his mansion for tea, the couple meet a series of other guests; industrialists, musicians, a prostitute— who are beholden to the dying owner of the estate. The couple find it impossible to leave the isolated house as each of the guests begin dying one by one.This unusual supernatural thriller, upon synopsis, evokes rather high expectations— what we have here is essentially a Satanic retread of "Ten Little Indians," complete with a sprawling English castle and sinister cats galore. "Are you... involved in black magic?" asks Ross, point blank to the other house guests. The film definitely has its moments no doubt— a series of bizarre death scenes wiping out the guest list definitely call attention — but the supernatural elements that tie the narrative together remain fairly nebulous and nondescript. The film does do a fantastic job at establishing a moody, drab atmosphere with the cloudy forest and forlorn aristocratic estate, especially when placed in contrast with the film's first five sunny minutes in Los Angeles. Overhead shots and some nice cinematography are on display here, but some of the film's key moments of tension are nearly destroyed by the hokey musical score. Other have said it, and I will say it as well: the score here is awful. Not that the music in and of itself is "bad," but it is frankly just inappropriate; key action scenes that should play out as moments of terror come across as scenes from an adventure comedy (Ross and Elliot's equine-come-car escape is a major example).Performance-wise, we have Katharine Ross and Sam Elliott playing off each other well, and British veterans like Charles Gray and John Standing are appropriately sinister. Roger Daltrey also fittingly appears as a wealthy rock musician who is one of the weekend party guests.Overall, "The Legacy" is a half-boiled supernatural thriller that suffers from two major pitfalls: the first being an indistinct script (a surprise given Hammer veteran Jimmy Sangster's repertoire), and the second being a disastrously ill-fitting score. That said, the film does succeed in reaping the sets of their Gothic atmosphere, and there are a handful of creative scenes scattered throughout, including some unexpectedly violent deaths. It is not a great film, but is worth viewing as a sort of time capsule of the era's genre pictures. 6/10.

AaronCapenBanner Katharine Ross & Sam Elliott play Margaret Walsh and Pete Danner, a young couple who become involved with a mysterious man, who invites them, along with five others, to his country estate, where one of them will inherit his "legacy", all the while being watched by his mysterious servants, who seem overly close to the master of the house, and when, one by one, the guests start dying in brutal and bizarre ways, does Maggie begin to learn the sinister truth, one that she feels destined to uncover...Ho-Hum thriller is strongly derivative of other similar films like "The Omen", "Rosemary's Baby", "The Exorcist", etc. but with far less successful results. Nicely filmed on location, but that's all in this mostly tepid and unsatisfying film.

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!