Craven and Blair make an unbeatable team

STRANGER IN OUR HOUSE aka SUMMER OF FEAR (1978)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Originally review from 2003

One night I was sifting through DVD's at the local Borders shop and came across a true oddity: "Stranger in Our House," a TV film from 1978 starring Linda Blair and directed by Wes Craven! I was dumbfounded! A Wes Craven flick with dear old Linda, the ultimate demon drenched in pea soup from everyone's fave horror flick? I had to purchase it, if only for the low price and my curiosity. I was pleasantly surprised. "Summer of Fear," the alternate video title, is quite good, if nothing outstanding, and a pleasant time-filler for curious Craven fans.

Linda Blair, in her puffy-cheek period, plays Rachel Bryant, a good-natured chick who loves horses (as does Linda in real life). She lives with her family in a nice neighborhood, has a curly blonde-haired brother (Jeff East), and two loving parents. One day, they get a call that Rachel's cousin, Julia (Lee Purcell), has suffered a tragedy - her parents have been killed in a car crash. Since she is an only child, Julia stays with Rachel and her parents until she calms down and gets over her grief. The trouble begins brewing when Julia takes an interest in Rachel's boyfriend, keeps potions and other strange artifacts in her drawers, drives horses crazy with fright, and makes red markings on Rachel's photographs! Lo and behold, there is an unintentionally funny moment when Rachel finds she has sores all over her body, and dammit if some of them don't materialize on her face! How can she ride her horse in the rodeo competition with sores on her face? How can Rachel's boyfriend ever be interested in her now? Time to give Julia the boot.

"Summer of Fear" is intriguing if only because it is a Wes Craven flick minus the gore and the typical beheadings. Based on a popular young adult novel of the same name, this is more of teenage flick where we deal with teenage concerns about appearances and who is dating whom. Julia is the older sister who takes advantage of her homely surroundings and turns everyone, including Rachel's parents, against Rachel. Everyone loves Julia, even Rachel's brother and her father who loves back rubs! But Julia is not what she seems - her sophisticated appearance and proper etiquette mask an evil witch!

"Summer of Fear" is fun and consistently entertaining with a lively performance by Linda Blair, who proves she was more than just a demonic, foul-mouthed, bed-wetting 12 year-old girl. It helps that Craven is a master of tension and unease, and he creates enough of both to make us feel uncomfortable. Lee Purcell is also unforgettable, not appearing like the typically beautiful witch next door - her restraint and sheer beauty make the horror quite palatable. Though this is not one of Craven's best films, it is occasionally campy and thrilling enough to make for a nice, relatively restrained night of horror.