If you’re in the mood for a terrifying tale of marital ennui, identity crises, and a woman’s desperate search for a more fabulous life—hold onto your wigs because The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver is here to serve up more than you could ever ask for… and by that, I mean it delivers about as much suspense and intrigue as a glass of lukewarm tap water. A made-for-TV movie that promised psychological thrills but gave us the cinematic equivalent of a half-baked therapy session, this little gem is less The Exorcist and more How to Ruin Your Marriage with One Bad Wig.
Plot: A Whirlwind of Ill-Thought Choices and 1970s Fashion
The story, as outlined in a plot summary that sounds like it was scribbled down during a coffee break, revolves around Miriam Oliver (played by Karen Black, who, let’s be honest, is the only reason you might even consider watching this thing). Miriam is a housewife who’s so bored with her life that she starts having vivid nightmares involving funerals, black flowers, fires, and some woman named Sandy. Because nothing says “I’m in the midst of an existential crisis” quite like these abstract, dreamlike themes.
At this point, you’d think Miriam would at least have a decent existential breakdown, but nope—she does what any self-respecting housewife with an insufferable husband (George Hamilton, who doesn’t even try to put in any effort here) would do: she buys a low-cut red blouse, slaps on a blonde wig, and adopts a new identity. You know, like every married woman does when she’s just trying to escape from a life where her husband thinks her primary purpose is to pop out babies and obsess over the lawn. She suddenly becomes Sandy, a woman who once lived in a beach house before, wait for it… she tragically died. Sounds perfectly reasonable, right? I mean, who doesn’t want to own a house where a woman just like you met a tragic end? That’s real estate gold!
The Most Unsettling Thing? The Wig.
Karen Black, bless her heart, is the shining star of this film—but even she can’t escape the heavy-handed direction and an utterly ridiculous script. She plays both Miriam and Sandy with the grace of someone trapped in a never-ending PTA meeting. Her transformation into Sandy involves not just a change of personality but a complete abandonment of good taste. Karen Black spends most of her time in the film wearing a garish blonde wig and enough makeup to make a clown jealous. This isn’t just a makeover—this is what happens when you let someone who’s never watched What Not to Wearstyle you. Black goes from dowdy housewife to full-on disastrous character, and yet, in this chaotic madness, there’s something fascinating about how hard she’s trying. You can see her floundering in this role, like an actress stuck in an improv class, trying to figure out how to make “possession” a compelling choice when the script clearly doesn’t give her much to work with.
The Plot Twists? As Real as My Grandma’s Ghost Stories
Let’s talk about the big twist—spoiler alert: Sandy and Miriam are not the same person (or are they?). The plot plays coy, pretending to leave us on the edge of our seats wondering if Miriam has truly gone mad, or if she’s been possessed by the spirit of her more glamorous self. Is it reincarnation? Possession? Does she just have a deep-seated desire to cosplay as some dead woman in an oddly specific beach house? Who knows? The film doesn’t care enough to commit to any one of these ideas, instead spinning in circles like Miriam in her tragic red blouse. The supernatural elements, like everything else, are completely underwhelming, mainly because the story never decides if it’s a psychological thriller or a supernatural drama. So it does neither—splendidly.
The Direction: Muddled Like Your Dad’s New Year’s Resolutions
Director Gordon Hessler might as well have been asleep at the wheel for much of this film. At one point, he creates “mood” by throwing some hazy dream sequences and trippy imagery at the wall to see what sticks, which is less “intriguing” and more “what am I supposed to be watching here?” His execution of Richard Matheson’s script is like a recipe that forgot the main ingredients. We have a housewife who might be losing her mind—great! And yet, Hessler’s direction is more like a half-hearted attempt to fill a genre void without bringing any emotional depth or tension. The film never really builds suspense, and the supposed mystery of Miriam’s transformation is so underdeveloped it feels like an afterthought. If you’re expecting some riveting supernatural horror, you’ll soon realize you’ve been stuck watching a middle-aged woman flounder in a bad wig for 90 minutes.
Final Verdict: This Is What Happens When You Ask for “Thrills” and Get Low-Grade Cheese
Sisters of Death might have delivered on the promise of suspense and mystery, but this one, The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver, forgets that a plot needs more than a wig and some random house renovations to make a solid thriller. While Karen Black shines in a role she’s clearly too good for, the rest of the film does nothing but drag its feet through an unconvincing plot full of lazily executed twists. The direction is a confused mess, the script feels like it was written by someone who once heard about supernatural horror but never bothered to read the genre rules, and the overall result is a film that can only be described as “trying too hard to be profound while struggling to stay awake.”
If you’re looking for psychological horror, stick with something that doesn’t spend the entire runtime talking about whether or not someone is possessed—because frankly, by the end, you’ll be possessed with an overwhelming desire to turn off the TV and do something more interesting, like staring at a wall.
