The Strange and Deadly Occurrence Movie Review 268

The Strange and Deadly Occurrence is a 1974 TV movie directed by John Llewellyn Moxley and starring Robert Stack(Unsolved Mysteries) and Vera Miles(Psycho).

The movie opens with the Rhodes family who have moved into a house in the country after leaving the city. They are having some small problems in the house. The power cuts out and their horses are acting very strangely. Someone is watching the house.Michael (Stack) is the father and Chrissie(Miles) is the mother. Their daughter is Melissa(Margaret Willock) and she screams in the middle of the night when she thinks that someone has been in her room. Her parents tell her that it was just her imagination. They find out that the last owner died in mysterious circumstances. A weird guy called Dr. Gillgreen(Ted Gehring) comes around and he wants to buy the house from them. They don't want to sell.

Their house becomes overrun with gophers and they call an exterminator. Melissa has another scare as she thinks she sees someone in her room. They bring in the local police but the cops seem to think that they are just city slickers and they don't help much. Dr. Gillgreen comes back again and he wants to buy the house. Michael tells him no way. They find their guard dog dead and Michael wonders if it is Gillgreen who is doing all of the strange things around the house to get them to sell. He tells this to the cops,but gets no satisfaction. He buys a hand gun. Michael runs a check on the doctor and finds out that he was working as a doctor in a prison. Meanwhile, Chrissie nearly dies in the steam room when someone locks her in. The cops still think that they are imagining all of it.

That night, Dr Gillgreen is outside the house when he is attacked by someone. The lights go out inside and Michael, Melissa and Chrissie are in the bedroom. Michael gets his gun and he is going to go outside to confront whoever it is but Chrissie won't let him. They try the phone, but that is cut off. They hear moaning outside and the sounds of someone in pain. They wait until the next morning and when they go outside, they find the body of Dr. Gillgreen in their swimming pool. The cops come and they agree that it was probably him who was terrorizing them. They think that it is all over, but they are wrong. Michael finds out that Gillgreen was working in prison and he talked to a prisoner who told him that he had buried a lot of money in the yard of the house. Unfortunately, Melissa and Chrissie come face to face with another criminal who knows about the money and he takes them hostage. Michael arrives back and he meets the guy who is called Pratt(Bill McKinney). He wants them to dig for the money. He holds a gun on them. Chrissie manages to hit him and he falls then Michael fights with him. Chrissie grabs his gun when it falls and she shoots him dead. The movie ends with the exterminator finding the gopher nest and inside it is the eaten remnants of the buried cash!

This was an entertaining TV movies with some creepy scenes. I enjoyed it and it was a surprise as I had never heard much about it. It's not full of gore or that scary but it is worth a watch anyway. I am giving it 
6/10.