Dear all,
This has been driving me crazy for no real reason other than its just driving me crazy …. hope you can help. I am after the title of a horror film. I think US early 1980’s. It features a bunch of people stuck in a big evil house. The defining scene I remember is one of the victims suddenly finds a window or door open and escapes the house into the night and its pouring with rain. They run across a courtyard past a circle of grass with a terrible looking tree in the middle. As they pass the tree it comes alive and its leaf-free branches ensnare the victim and drag them underground to their death. Any ideas? many thanks in advance.
However Nevena your suggestion of using the keywords search in IMDB has come up trumps. The only key word appropriate was Haunted House and it brought up several thousand. But by restricting my search to start in the 1970s this looked strangely familiar …. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077524/ The Evil. IMDB describes a scene of meeting the devil in a completely white room which suddenly rang a bell. When I checked out the corresponding entry on Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evil_(1978_film) ) it describes the following scene which I had slightly misremembered … “The electricity causes the bars in one of the windows to melt, and Raymond leaps through the window. As he runs away from the house, however, the ground beneath him turns to quicksand, and he sinks into the mud, drowning.” So no tree, but that’s what I was thinking of – its definitely that one. Thanks again for your help it was instrumental in getting the right answer.
Cool!
I’m so glad I helped
However Nevena your suggestion of using the keywords search in IMDB has come up trumps. The only key word appropriate was Haunted House and it brought up several thousand. But by restricting my search to start in the 1970s this looked strangely familiar …. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077524/ The Evil. IMDB describes a scene of meeting the devil in a completely white room which suddenly rang a bell. When I checked out the corresponding entry on Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evil_(1978_film) ) it describes the following scene which I had slightly misremembered … “The electricity causes the bars in one of the windows to melt, and Raymond leaps through the window. As he runs away from the house, however, the ground beneath him turns to quicksand, and he sinks into the mud, drowning.” So no tree, but that’s what I was thinking of – its definitely that one. Thanks again for your help it was instrumental in getting the right answer.
I’m not sure if it’s “Evil Dead II”
It has two parts but it might be the second one: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092991/?ref_=ttkw_kw_tt
Here’s the first one: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083907/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Thanks for taking the time to answer Nevena12, but I don’t think that this can be it. ED II features a log cabin I think and I’m pretty sure I remember a creepy gothic mansion. Film might be 70’s rather than 80’s too. I just read the plotline and see the link with the trees so it was a very reasonable suggestion … but not the one I’m thinking of alas.
I have just one more suggestion: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074258/?ref_=vp_back
And if it’s not it you can try to find it here with keywords: https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?ref_=kw_ref_yr&sort=moviemeter,asc&mode=detail&page=1&genres=Horror
Thanks again for thinking about this Nevena and again I think this is a really close guess and as my own memories are a bit hazy its possible it might be this one. I have seen Burnt Offerings and its really similar in many respects but I don’t think this it. And in all my own efforts this is the one I keep arriving at …. but the thing I have in my mind is that BO is about a family being terrorised whereas in my mind the film I am thinking about it was more a group of unrelated people. But thanks again for trying, it is appreciated.
And its on Youtube too to boot. Just watched the scene I remembered and it is as terrible as I remember … the house suddenly opening a window for no reason and the character needlessly wandering into the quicksand/mud continuing into it when they could have just walked around it! They even had to take two steps into it!!