Being England’s wealthiest high school drama teacher, the well-heeled Anderson promises her husband she will not take the sketchy Blackwater Lane shortcut home after celebrating the last day of school with her colleagues. Of course, it’s late, it’s rainy, and she’s had a few, so she does anyway. She does not have an accident herself, but she notices a car suspiciously parked by the side of the road and the woman inside looks extremely sleepy.
It turns out that was her best-friend Rachel’s co-worker, who was indeed murdered. At first, she is hesitant to mention it, because of her promise to Matthew. However, the police receive a tip that she was there. Subsequently, she starts seeing a mysterious figure watching her from the palatial grounds and a shadowy woman seems to haunt to tarp-strewn wing under renovation. As she remembers relatively mundane things differently than those around her, Matthew worries she might be headed towards another mental breakdown (see, there were two meanings to the word in Parris’s original title).
Anderson’s big creaky manor would be a great setting for a true gothic horror, but it really is more of a yarn in the tradition of Rinehart’s The Bat. There are two twists horror fans will immediately suspect. One is too ambitious for this film, which necessarily leaves the other.
