User Reviews

Jean Linton (Patricia Dainton) is married to an unreliable, heavy drinking and would be author called David (Tony Wright) who drinks what little money he earns reviewing books and subjects his wife to a life of living in private hotels and owing rent to all and sundry. But, everything changes when Jean is left an old fashioned country house called High Winds by her Aunt Grace who has unexpectedly passed away. The house is supposedly haunted by a poltergeist that the elderly Irish housekeeper Mrs O' Brien (Anita Sharp Bolster) refers to as 'Patrick' saying that it was very protective of Aunt Grace and brought misfortune to those who tried to harm her. Jean is inclined to believe that it actually exists since furniture starts to move around of its own accord, but David is sceptical dismissing it as 'supernatural nonsense' and his only interest is selling the house to make a quick buck, but his wife flatly refuses. David begins an affair with the attractive Valerie Stockley (Sandra Dorne) who he has hired as a typist to work on his novel and her divorce is about to come through. David proposes to her and she accepts, but Jean poses a problem so the pair plan to murder her in order to be able to sell the house for the £6000 that local property developer and owner Maurice Lumley (Sam Kydd) has offered them for it. When David attempts to get Jean drunk and push her down the shaft of the house lift, the cage slams shut of its own accord. Next, he attempts to poison her hot milk, but the doorbells start ringing continuously and extremely loud when she goes to sip from it and causing her to spot that it has been poisoned. She pours it into the plants when David goes to check on the doorbells and, the following day, she visits her lawyer in London but is unable to convince him that her husband is trying to do her in. After all, who would believe her story about a poltergeist intervening to save her life from her husband's machinations? While she is away, David and Valerie make love in the house behind her back and dear old Patrick has even more tricks -and deadly ones - up his sleeve resulting in terrible consequences...

A modestly effective little ghost chiller from quota quickie stalwart Montgomery Tully that seems extremely primitive today in terms of its special effects. The hauntings themselves are very basic and would not have stretched the technicians creative skills too much; in part, no doubt, to keep within the constraints of what must have been a very tight budget and hectic shooting schedule. They include a mirror shattering itself when Valerie looks into it to tie her headscarf, an armchair moving by itself (off screen mainly) and ink spilling all over David's paperwork. Hardly marrow freezing stuff although the latter features an effective little moment where David attempts to blame Mrs. O'Brien for the accident and she replies: "He (Patrick) must be very angry with you about something." A nice touch of little oldie worldy superstition there which, in this case, turns about to be frighteningly true. The performances are very good all round, it has to be said, with Tony Wright utterly convincing as the layabout 'writer' who is more interested in making a quick, easy buck than earning a decent living and Sandra Dorne who was a great femme fatale in Wolf Rilla's superior b-pic Marilyn nearly a decade previously is excellent here and works very well with Wright in their scenes together. Patricia Dainton who was the excellent leading lady in Montgomery Tully's outstanding The Third Alibi - released the same year and made by the same production company as this one, Grand National - plays her part as the wife in danger adequately and is believable as the honest, hard working girl who is lumbered with a layabout husband who is content to do nothing except live off her money while having an affair and plotting to kill her so he can get his hands on her valuable property. The climax in which the poltergeist exacts vengeance on Wright and Dorne while they are alone in the house during a thunderstorm is competently done and Tully succeeds in getting some tension and suspense from it. Praise must also go to Philip Martell's excellent music score, which adds production value and a sense of creepiness to the proceedings. All in all, The House In Marsh Road is enjoyable if you don't expect too much and makes for pleasant, undemanding entertainment as well as being a nice reminder of an era of British filmmaking that has long disappeared.

Poor Jean Linton (Patricia Dainton): she's got no money, no home, and her husband David (Tony Wright), an aspiring novelist, is a drunken, womanising wastrel. Jean's financial problems are solved when she inherits £1000 and an old house from her aunt; unfortunately, her husband goes from bad to worse, conducting an affair with Valerie Stockley (Sandra Dorne), the attractive woman he employs to type up the book he has been working on.

When Valerie learns that David has no money of his own, she plants the seed of murder in her lover's mind; however, David's attempts to do away with his wife and get his hands on her wealth are foiled when Patrick, the poltergeist that also inhabits the Linton's new home, intervenes.

While no classic, The House In Marsh Road (AKA Invisible Creature) is a very watchable movie, with solid performances and efficient direction by Montgomery Tully, who maintains a steady pace and develops the plot in a plausible manner (as plausible as a film about a protective poltergeist can be, that is!). Although there is a spook in the house, it is David who Jean becomes scared of, the man revealing the true extent of his callousness by first attempting to push his wife down a lift shaft, and then trying to poison her. Patrick ensures that Jean survives both times, and then decides that enough is enough when David and Valerie spend the night together while Jean is away: the poltergeist secures all the exits and burns the house down. I do hope Jean had home insurance.

A formerly penniless woman is delighted to inherit the house of her estranged aunt. Although people warn her about the presence of a ghost, she soon feels completely at home. She also hopes that this stepping stone to normalcy and stability will help keep her husband on the straight and narrow. Alas, the man degenerates from a shiftless drunk into a shiftless and adulterous drunk...

"The House in Marsh Road" is a mix of thriller and horror. As a horror movie, it falls into the "haunted house" genre. While watchable, the movie suffers from a certain blandness when evoking the uncanny and the supernatural. Weird things happen around the house but they don't make the viewer's spine tingle with fear. Moreover, the actions of the characters don't always make sense. Near the end, the female protagonist has grown convinced that her husband is trying to kill her, but this does not keep her from returning to their common dwelling. Most reasonable women would not return to that address at all ; or if they did return, it would only be in order to pick up their most essential possessions, accompanied by several strong policemen or bodyguards.

On the other hand "The House in Marsh Road" works up to an extremely strong and striking finale. And yes, it turns out that your back pain specialist IS right : comfy chairs are a danger to human health !

THE HOUSE IN MARSH ROAD is a low budget British potboiler with a supernatural edge. The storyline is a predictable one about a seemingly normal husband and wife who move into a new home. Unbeknownst to the wife, the husband has a jealous lover who plans to murder the wife so that she can take her place. However, a supernatural force in the house has other ideas.

It's quite unusual to see a film like this which plays up the thriller aspects of the storyline while downplaying the supernatural elements. Certainly there are no special effects or anything here, just a few spooky scenes of plates smashing and the like. As a film, THE HOUSE IN MARSH ROAD feels quite dated in comparison to the likes of THE HAUNTING which came out three years later, but it has elements of interest for the British genre fan. Patricia Dainton gives a typically assured performance as the put-upon wife, and Sam Kydd is reliable in support as always. Hardworking director Montgomery Tully keeps things moving nicely along as well, so at least you can say that it's never boring.

David and Jean Linton (Tony Wright and Patricia Dainton) are a quarrelsome couple who inherit THE HOUSE IN MARSH ROAD. Upon their arrival at the residence, unexplained events start happening right away.

David, a struggling writer with a taste for the bottle, seems to be in a constant snit, never satisfied with anything. While he fumes, Jean learns that their new property comes with a little something extra. Something -someone?- that just may be causing the mysterious mischief.

When Jean goes out for the day, David invites the beautiful Valerie Stockley (Sandra Dorne) over to do some "typing". Meanwhile, more odd occurrences take place, infuriating David and reinforcing Jean's belief that they are not alone.

Toad that he is, it's not long before David decides that it's time for Jean to have an "accident", since Valerie's such a good "typist" and all! Well, old David's in for a big surprise!

This is a very enjoyable British thriller with a fiery finale...

Average little cheapo which is an odd hybrid of standard 'husband plots wife's murder to get his hands on her valuable, recently inherited house' scenario, and a semi-comic sub-plot featuring a largely benign ghost, nicknamed Patrick, who haunts the house in question. Patrick's interventions are mischievous, though he does turn nasty when evil's afoot. The problem is that the ghost's input into the film is neither comic enough to be comedy, nor spooky enough to be spooky, so the plot could function without it, just requiring another way for the villains to get their comeuppance (which is the only real purpose for Patrick to be in it).

The inherited house has rescued Jean and David (Patricia Dianton and Tony Wright) from a life of unpaid bills, living in temporary digs, and scraping by as best they can. The house is worth a few thousand, David wants to sell it, Jean wants to live in it, and there's the problem. David is an unspeakable cad, trying to write a novel, but boozing it up instead most of the time, and mostly living off Jean. When he meets sexy Valerie (Sandra Dorne) the die is cast, and Jean will have to be bumped off so that he and his new love can get the house. But Patrick protects his owner with timely interventions, and then unleashes his full power on the scheming couple at the end. There's some clunky dialogue, Valerie's character has a strange moral code which doesn't allow her to be seduced until her divorce has come through, but lets her jump straight into David's marital bed as soon as it has, and encourages him to commit murder. The big mystery is why any woman would fall for this snake, let alone two of them. The film as a whole is neither one thing or the other, but it's harmless enough.

This sort of film was quite popular in the fifties and sixties.A poltergeist or ghost making its presence felt.The whole effect here is quite successful up to a point.Unfortunately this point is the climax.The poltergeist decides that it has had enough of Tony wright and his dalliance with Sandra Dorne and rolls a burning coal from an unguarded fire.It conveniently ensures that the fire creeps upstairs to where they are having a fun time in the marital bedroom.The door and windows wont open till its too late and eventually Wright and Dorne and the house are reduced to ashes.I was hoping for a rather more chilling climax.

No relation to the American horror classic of 1982 or its insipid sequels, this British melodrama takes the old fashioned haunted house and adds some interesting twists to it. The story focuses on heoress Patricia Dainton, struggling novelist Tony Wright and his sexy secretary Sandra Dorne whom he begins an affair with, leading to murderous intentions. The house wife Dainton inherits seems to have a mind of its own, starting with moving furniture and then going on to other bits of supernatural phenomena. I guess even houses can tell when someone has diabolical plans and can set out to stop it, and that creates issues in Wright's plans.

There's a fun performance by Anita Sharp-Bolster (the British Margaret Hamilton) as the sharp tongued housekeeper, stealing everything that she is in with her no-nonsense manner. The film starts out slowly with a very bland sense of style, but once they get into the house, the film really begins to take off. It's a typical old country home, rather large and in need of major repairs, and of course, that causes arguments over whether or not it's just a matter of an old house creaking or the fact that it's taking over. Intriguing but sonetimes slow moving, requiring some concentration to remain interested in.

Not a bad little early 60's British-made spooker/thriller. A woman inherits an old rambling house from an aunt. She right away likes the house and even its resident ghost. Her wastrel husband does not. A real rotter that drinks and carouses with other women more than he works at a job or his marriage. He would like his wife to sell the house so he can go through the money at the speed of light. When he gets fed up at his now independant wife and her refusal to do what he wants he picks up whith the town tramp. The they start planning to do away with the cumbersome wife. They don't count on the ghost doing everything it can to protect the wife and punish them. Not overly atmospheric or spooky, but the supernatural goings on seem believable and not over the top. Good performances by all. Always liked this film. I found a fair condition DVD-R. Hopefully someday it will be released re-mastered. The film (not necesarily the DVD-R) is highly recommended.