Laura Wilson (Patty Duke, Valley of the Dolls, The Swarm) and Mark (David McCallum, Illya Kuryakin on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and better known to today’s TV audience as Dr. Donald Mallard on N.C.I.S.) haven’t been married long. On their first trip to meet his mother (Dorothy McGuire, The Greatest Story Ever Told), she learns that maybe this marriage wasn’t the best of ideas. Mom has been ready to go nutzoid ever since Mark’s first wife, Elaine, died, and she’s convinced that her ghost is inside her home.

Everywhere Laura goes, she starts hearing Elaine’s favorite song and even her voice. Is she trying to possess her? Or is she just being ridiculous, as the family doctor suggests? The movie never fully embraces the supernatural. It’s more about Mark shutting himself off and not dealing with the past.

The family maid thinks that Mark’s mother is getting worse and worse, with Laura in danger of the very same insanity. And what’s the deal with Mark’s friend David (James T. Callahan, the dad from Charles in Charge)? And can you talk a ghost out of possessing someone just by talking to them?

Director Delbert Mann (Marty) weaves a competent story, penned by Art Wallace, the main writer for TV’s Dark Shadows. It’s a tale that fits snugly into the 1970s, a time when possession, Satan, and the ghosts of murdered wives lurked around every corner. The film’s slow pace is a deliberate nod to the conventions of TV movie horror, inviting you to revel in the nostalgia of a bygone era.