Are You in the House Alone? (1978)

Really Surprised!

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

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

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Found a very low quality version on youtube. Thought it was going to be a creepy 70's horror but this was not a horror film at all. Or much of a thriller. It was more of a drama about rape. However, I could only bear 20 minutes before giving up because of the terrible acting, the lack of anything happening and the really, really slow pacing.Every scene dragged.All the characters were dull. The storyline was uneventful.

It has all the trappings of a bad movie about high school students, their loves, intrigues, and murders, but it's a little better than that. Poor Kathleen Beller, a pretty student at Oldfield High, starts getting mysterious notes saying things like, "I'm watching you." If that weren't unnerving enough, the phone calls begin. It all finally ends in her being raped, rather decorously. I had the wrong villain picked out. I could have sworn it would turn out to be the encouraging but slightly out-of-focus photography teacher.It's not a slasher movie. There's no blood. Nobody threatens anybody else with an ax. It essentially a drawn-out story of Beller and the conundrums she faces regarding sex, family disputes, the threatening phone calls, her talent at photography, and whatnot.A lot depends on Beller. She's in almost every scene. And she's adequate -- no more than that. She has an effective pout. Neither she nor anyone else has any scenes in which they explode with emotion. She's attractive in a babyish way and has wavy burnt-carmine hair that's really LONG, like down to her sacroiliac, the kind of soft mane any normal man would want to run barefoot through. Her boy friend, Tony Bill, has even features, and that's it. Ditto for Beller's Dad, who should never be promoted out of hair spray for men commercials.The best performance is unquestionably from Blythe Danner. Her big blue eyes and ash blond hair aside, she's able to do something original with even small moments of distress or concern, and it makes much of the rest of the cast look as if they're auditioning for parts. Dennis Quaid has an important role but doesn't do much with it, partly because it's not written that way. He has only a few lines and is asked to do nothing but smirk or look puzzled. He was to improve mightily over the next few years.I don't know that the film deserves too much acting talent. The director, Walter Graumann, must have once read a book of formulas for directors. Let's see. There's the camera zooming in for a choker close up when someone is about to say something important or express an emotion deeper than indifference.Twice, Beller, the helpless victimized young girl, is quietly attending to something and an unexpected event takes place -- a door swings open without warning, or a figure appears out of the darkness -- and she leaps to her feet and gasps loudly. I guess someone forgot the musical sting that usually accompanies these shocks.The camera has a habit of taking the point of view of the miscreant -- the monster, the murderer, the rapist, the voyeur. I don't know why this meme has infected the industry. Yes, it serves to hide the identity of the heavy, but it also forces the audience into the position of identifying with the person who is about to do wrong. The device was much less offensive in "Rear Window." Final cliché: After the rape, Beller wakes up in the hospital, bruised and deflowered, surrounded by loving family, doctors, and police. They all ask her, "Who did this?" And, as is WAY too often the case, the victim breaks down and begins sobbing gibberish. "Nobody will believe me anyway," she finally gasps out. I'll skip the legal improbabilities that follow.I'm being kind of harsh on the movie not because it's so terrible but because with a little imagination and talent it could have been better than it is. Those family disputes, for instance, are an irrelevant distraction. Much is made of Dad's being laid off and hiding it from Beller to "protect her." Mom, with her part-time job showing houses, is holding everything together. But the movie has little sympathy for the parents. Instead, as Beller finally tells them, they should stop treating her like a baby.Nice photography in joyous color. The sky is always a blazing blue. There are few spooky night-time scenes. Everybody is middle-class or better. They drive some sporty machines, take fencing classes, and if things don't work out at Oldfield High, the parents send them back East to private boarding schools. How nice for them, he said, in an envious froth.

There is a lot to like in this film, despite its humble trappings of a preachy PC tale about rape and the perp always faring better than the victim. The movie did create a fair bit of suspense in the mystery surrounding who was sending the notes. (I, for one, was sure it was the teacher. In fact, that would have been more probable plot-wise because the idea of the best-friend's boy-friend kind of came out of nowhere. I guess the point of that is that "rape is omnipresent. You never know who it is going to be".) Ms. Beller is luminous as always (yet see KB discussion board for my qualification of this statement). Like all preachy films the plot lasts 15 minutes past the climax so you might want to quit watching at that point. Unless you are really curious to find out what happens to Phillip. Blythe Danner, as the mom, is in the role she was born to play: the fretting, over-protective mom. Some good 70s scenes for 70s fans. (The dark bar that the father goes to in order to drink away his pain is all dark-stained beams, barrels, oak and cork). A must for Beller fans and highly recommended for fans of 70s High School melodrama or 70s kitsch in general.

This TV movie is surprisingly good about a girl being stalked at school. I used to watch a lot of these movies as a kid and this one stands out as one of the best. It has an unpredictable ending and holds your attention throughout. Highly recommended if you get the chance to see it!