Home for the Holidays
This wealthy man called Benjamin "Ben" Morgan (Walter Brennan) is sick and is supposedly being taken care by her second wife. However, he doesn't trust her and calls - we can even say that he summons - her four daughters to visit him at his isolated mansion.The film begins with Alexandra "Alex" Morgan (Eleanor Parker) driving her own car to pick up her siblings at the airport. She is stopped by Doctor Ted Lindsay (John Fink), an old boyfriend of hers, who inquires about her return to the village after nine years. They also comment on the worsening weather and that the four siblings will only stay for the Christmas holidays.When Alex arrives back to the mansion, it is already night and pouring down with rain.Frederica "Freddie" Morgan (Jessica Walter) is dying for a drink. Christine "Chris" Morgan (Sally Field) complains. She has promised herself not to set foot in that house again, not even to have the pleasure of see her father's coffin go down. She inquires exactly what the family crisis is about. Joanna "Jo" Morgan (Jill Haworth) really feels distraught because of the bad blood against their father. Alex admits that it's because Ben is a dying man, and also because she got a letter from him accusing his second wife Elizabeth Hall Morgan (Julie Harris) of poisoning him. Alex thinks that they shouldn't let her murder somebody "again". If it were not for that, she would be the first not attending the funeral and letting his new wife to bury him on her own.The four of them need to speak to Ben. They see Elizabeth at the top of the stairs. She asks them to be civil while they are there. Freddie can't stand thinking that they are sleeping on the bed where their long-suffering mother died. Elizabeth tells them to see Ben at once.Ben complains that Elizabeth has ears everywhere - in fact, she is trying to overhear from behind the door right now. Ben is rude to every one of his daughters, until Chris presses him on. Ben doesn't want Elizabeth to hear what he has to say, but Jo looks out of the window and she can see her putting on an ugly raincoat and living. Apparently, he has told her that they are coming back because he begged them to and they wanted his money. At the beginning, Ben didn't believe his second wife had murdered her first husband, but now he wants his daughters to kill her so that he will be saved.Elizabeth has come back. Chris speaks about the storm with her when she goes to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. They also speak about Kelly, who usually works for the Morgans but these days is sick.The four siblings blame Ben for their mother's suicide. Elizabeth prepares the coffee.Freddie is still traumatized about her mother crying while Ben was to see his lover. Freddie looks really unstable, drinking too much and taking pills. She is so drunk that she can't have dinner with her siblings and Elizabeth. It isa very bleak Christmas eve dinner. Ben apparently doesn't want to see any doctor, not even Dr Lindsay. Chris says that when she was having problems with her husbands she could speak to Alex, who always was her rock and her crying shoulder, resulting in her not needing to kill any of her husbands.Elizabeth knows all the rumours about her. She says that it was terribly difficult to find accommodation or a job because everybody thought she was a murderer of her first husband, although that evening she was with Ben, but only Jo and the grand jury believed in that possibility . She recalls waking up screaming in jail.At that moment, Freddie screams for bloody murder. Chris, Alex and Jo run to her room. She has a piece of glass. She is totally out of her mind. She hugs the portrait of her late mother. Her siblings hold her down while she tries to attack Elizabeth with that piece of glass. Jo is left staring at the painting, tainted by Freddie's blood, as if the painting had rained.Alex begs Jo not to go away. They are discussing who is the emotional prisoner of whom. Jo believes that the letter is just a trick to have the four sisters present at the house at the same time. Jo is all pack up to go.She tries to say goodbye to Chris, but she is taking care of hysterical Freddie. Jo and Chris say goodbye outside. The storm rages on.Jo has picked up her suitcase and umbrella and is trying to make it to her car. At the last second she can't findthe keys. Somebody in Elizabeth's yellowy raincoat kills her with a pitchfork of her back. The body is hidden away.Somebody rings at the door. Chris goes to open the door.It's Ted, who has come to wish them Merry Christmas, Chris looks really happy at Ted's present. Ted has worn a grey raincoat. He positions himself close to the raging fireplace. Ted asks Chris why she has never married. She is afraid that she scares men away. Ted has to go back to the village pretty soon. His father wouldn't like him visiting the Morgans. Suddenly, Elizabeth shows up and she is really pissed of at him. She doesn't want Ted to see Ben.Ted would like to do some blood test. But Ted says that it was Elizabeth herself who called him to do some on Ben, when he started to have the mania of being poisoned. He thinks that it proves that Elizabeth is very clever in any case, as that would make her look innocent.Chris keeps on tinkering around in the kitchen. She puts on some red gloves to do the dishes.Alex wants to speak to Freddie in the morning. Alex thinks that Chris is childish and so innocent that she is stupid, and she tells her to her face. Alex kisses her good night. Chris tries to make a call, but the phone makes very weird noises.Elizabeth is preparing tea, milk and honey to help herself and Freddie to sleep. Chris refuses to drink it.Chris tells her that the phone is out, but Elizabeth already knows it, blaming the storm for it. Elizabeth says that Ben didn't want to drink it either. She prepares a cup of the concoction and takes it upstairs carefully. Ben spies her waling upstairs. Elizabeth offers Freddie the cup. Freddie has a hot water bath while drinking licour and Elizabeth's preparation. Suddenly, somebody wearing Chris' kitchen gloves pull her legs from outside the bath tube. Freddie is so out of it that she lets herself go.Later, Chris sees Freddie's dead body. She screams. Alex looks out but doesn't touch her. Elizabeth also shows up, looking startled. Chris cries, Alex comforts her and Ben inquires what has happened. Elizabeth tells him that Freddie killed herself, or that it was an accident. Ben suspects Elizabeth's motives to visit Freddie on her bedroom. Elizabeth says that she couldn't have poisoned her as she has drunk another mug of it herself. However Alex goes to check it out. She can't find the mug on Elizabeth's room or the drug vials on Freddie's room.Chris checks and the telephone is still out. Alex goes to check on Ben, and Elizabeth is inside, hiding away behind the door, looking evil. Meanwhile, Alex thinks that Elizabeth is trying to kill all of them to get her hands on the whole inheritance and properties. Chris is appalled to have to stay inside the house and wait to be killed as the village is ten miles away and Jo took Alex's car to go to the airport. She wants to go walking one mile to the house of their nearest neighbour, Mrs Killian, a bed-ridden woman. Alex says that the forest has changed during the nine years they have been outside,and that she will get lost. Cut to the yellow raincoat and red wellington boots hanging on a wall. Elizabeth peeks out from a window to the departing Chris.Chris runs and runs. She stops, and hears somebody going after her because of the noise of the twigs breaking under their feet. It is somebody in the yellow raincoat carrying a pitchfork. She hides in a hole, right under the place where the stalker stops to look around.From a window, Alex sees Elizabeth coming back to the house wearing the yellow raincoat. Chris has arrived to the house where Alex and Ben are. She trips and sees a hand protruding from the soil, wearing Jo's ring. She screams. At that moment, Elizabeth shows up in a yellow raincoat claiming to be very worried about her, that she has been searching for her out of concern for her well-being. Chris runs away screaming. She goes to the house and enter it in panic. Elizabeth is still outside. Chris runs around locking doors and windows. Elizabeth enters through a basement door. Chris hides in silence while Elizabeth looks everywhere for her.Elizabeth says aloud "Christine, you are safe now." She keeps on searching for her. She goes out. Chris hears the door closing so she decides to abandon her hiding place. She walks around the house on her wet raincoat. She tries to wake up Ben, who is already dead. Elizabeth says so and Chris scrams and pushes her out of her way to leave the house. Elizabeth goes after her screaming for her to come back.A while later, she stops a car. It is Alex. Alex says that everybody always comes to her when they have problems. Chris is finally convinced that Elizabeth has killed everybody, but Alex says that Elizabeth wouldn't have killed Chris as Elizabeth didn't kill anybody.Alex wanted to be free of them all. She felt trapped being the support of everybody. Alex hits Chris, who falls rolling down a slope. Alex has to make sure that Chris is dead, so she picks up a lantern and checks.Finally, it has stopped raining.At that moment, Ted arrives in his truck. Alex cries and says that Elizabeth killed them all. Ted offers Alex his sympathy. Ted and Alex go their separate ways, Alex keen on telling her story to the police, and Ted in search of Chris.It is morning. Sheriff Nolan (Med Flory) is driving his police car with Alex inside. She still has perfect hair and clothing. She is making believe to be crying.Elizabeth looks at the entrance of Nolan and Alex in the house but doesn't say anything.Ted shows up from another room on the upper floor and he tells her that he has found Chris. She is sleeping in a warm bed. Alex goes inside crying and saying good things about Chris because she thinks Chris is dead, but Chris opens up her eyes. Alex starts screaming. Chris just stares at her and doesn't say anything.Ted and Nolan take Alex away. She stops for a second and stares at Chris, peering at her from behind the curtains. Elizabeth has been cleared of everything.Elizabeth says goodbye to Chris. Chris, still with a wound on her face, is leaving with Ted. Apparently, they have always been in love. Elizabeth tells Ted to take care of her, while she stays on the mansion with the huge property for her.Ted and Chris drive away.
violence, murder