Interested in my thoughts on the 1989 TV movie The Haunting of Sarah Hardy?
At her father’s funeral a young girl named Sarah witnesses her delusional, unbalanced mother commit suicide by running off into the sea drowning herself. Her mother was never seen or heard from again but Sarah never quite believed she was dead. Fifteen years later, we meet Sarah as an adult and she has just married a successful handsome man named Austin. Sarah decides to move back in to her family home, The Pines, despite what her longtime pals Lucy and Allen think.
Right away, creepy things begin to happen to Sarah. She begins to see things that vanish or shadows that appear to be her mother. One of the main occurrences that freaked her out was hearing a tune her mother would play on the harpsichord, even though there was no one in the room. Eventually Sarah begins to think that perhaps she inherited her mother’s crazy gene and will suffer the same suicidal fate as her dear mom. Throughout the film the writer/director works to make sure that audience is questioning whether Sarah’s mother is still alive or if someone is truly after Sarah.
As for the cast of characters, there are plenty of possibilities for who could be putting Sarah through these shenanigans. And it’s anybody’s guess as to who might be responsible. Figuring out who’s to blame is, of course, half the fun.
When I first watched this film it reminded me of George Cukor’s Gaslight (1944), however, I’m not sure if it is a remake or just influenced by it. As far as it goes with the characters, they were all believable and carried their own. In the beginning of the film,the little girl who played Sarah as well as the kids who played Allen and Lucy were awful actors. Which is totally fine because the kids weren’t really in the film for too long. The actress who played Sarah as an adult (Sela Ward) did an awesome job. Although all these outrageous things are occurring Sarah is not whiny or a helpless China doll. She remains level headed 85% of the time even though she’s vulnerable.
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