Home for the Holidays

2/23/2022

_**Precursor to the looming onslaught of slashers**_ Four daughters visit their ailing father (Walter Brennan) at his rural estate in SoCal for the holidays. He insists that his current wife is poisoning him (Julie Harris) and people start dying during a rainstorm. The daughters are: The wise older sibling, Alex (Eleanor Parker); the neurotic alcoholic Freddie (Jessica Walter); the promiscuous Jo (Jill Haworth); and the winsome youth Christie (Sally Field). "Home for the Holidays" (1972) is a drama/mystery with some horror elements that was originally released as a TV movie on ABC. As my title blurb states, this was the forerunner to the forthcoming rush of slashers by the early 80s. Sure, it’s understandably tamer and more dramatic, but it has a killer in a hooded raincoat with