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. And 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 she just being ridiculous, as the family doctor suggests? The movie never really gives in the whole way to 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, well, talking to them?Director Delbert Mann (Marty) puts together a competent story, written by Art Wallace, who was the main writer for TV's Dark Shadows. It fits into the 70's well, where possession and Satan and old ghosts of murdered wives were around every corner. It's slow moving, but if you understand that going in and know the conventions of TV movie horror, you'll find some good in this film.

In 1967, Patty Duke took a big chance and starred in "Valley of the Dolls". It was a far cry from the sweet characters in "The Patty Duke Show" or Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker". Instead, she played a very (EXTREMELY) emotionally overwrought lady who destroys herself with booze and drugs. Her performance was terrible...and the script certainly didn't give Duke much of a chance. Sadly, here only a few years later, Duke is back...and her character is also quite overwrought and, at times, rather silly when it shouldn't have been. In "She Waits", Duke plays Laura Wilson, the new wife of Mark (David McCallum). It seems he was married before and apparently his first wife committed suicide. Now, Laura is started to receive psychic visits from the first wife...and over time, Laura becomes possessed by the spirit of this vindictive and nasty woman! But there's far more to it than this...and it turns out the first wife did NOT take her own life! So who did it? And how can the wife help solve her own murder?While the film does offer a nice twist at the end, so much of the film is just overdone and silly. Subtle it ain't!! Watch if you want....I just don't think it's particularly good.

A wealthy man, whose first wife died under mysterious circumstances, brings his perky but insecure new bride to his family home, which is dominated by a crazy old woman. Yep, it's deja vu all over again! But to avoid being sued by Alfred Hitchcock or Daphne du Maurier, the filmmakers give the second wife a name, make the old housekeeper sensible while assigning the husband's mother the eccentric-crone role, and hint at real supernatural involvement in all the strange goings-on. But all the cosmetic changes can't mask the basic structure of "Rebecca," although this is an above-average ripoff thanks to the presence of an Oscar-winning actress, Patty Duke, in the Mrs. De Winter role, and an Oscar-winning director, Delbert Mann ("Marty," "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs"), who wrings as much atmosphere as he can out of an over-orchestrated soundtrack, a wind machine and an oft-recycled set (I believe this particular house was reused in "The Devil's Daughter" and might have served as "The House That Would Night Die," appropriately enough). Throw in slumming Hollywood vets Beulah Bondi and Dorothy McGuire as the requisite old women, ever-earnest Lew Ayres as the requisite crusty old doctor, and aging pretty boy from U.N.C.L.E. David McCallum as the requisite moody, mysterious husband and you've got an adequate low-rent chiller, although most of the people involved deserved better.As our film opens, kooky old McGuire is wandering her dark, empty house, calling out for a ghost named "Elaine" until older but stabler Bondi ushers her back to bed. Not long after, the newlywed McCallum and Duke show up unannounced. Omigosh, you wonder, is Patty going to start acting funny? Well, duh. But since Patty Duke could act, it's actually kind of compelling to watch, and the transitions imposed upon her character give her the chance to show off some range and depth. But while we buy Patty's transformation, we never buy McCallum's love for her since he lets his floppy hairstyle do most of the acting for him. The old folks are along for the ride and royalties and it's nice to see them getting some work. You know where it's going, but you don't mind the ride.

While falling very much on the melodrama side of things as opposed to aiming for much in the way of overt shocks or scare tactics, She Waits holds together pretty well in its way, building pleasurably to a suitably fraught final block. The plot is simple, David (Ilya Kuryakin) McCallum takes his lovely new wife home to see his mother and work through some of his own issues, only for said mother to stir up the past and his wife's own neuroses into a foaming brew of the possibly supernatural. Actually for much of the time the film could simply be called something like The Menace of the Meddling Mother In-Law, as generally the point of whether or not something paranormal is going on is kept ambiguous, while the fact that the mother is doing no good is beyond question. Still, a quality turn from Dorothy McGuire keeps her character interesting if not beyond cliché, one gets the feeling of genuine fear and torment roiling away inside her, the feeling that she really is doing what she thinks best and exists in a sphere of isolation permitting no outside force to change her mind. It's a decent performance and she has great chemistry with Patty Duke as the beleaguered new wife Laura. Duke captures very well a sense of restless curiosity, steady mounting insecurity and eroding personality, malleable mind within fragile beauty. David McCallum on the other hand is very much a weak link, his acting borders on the somnambulant for most of the film, only developing a noticeable pulse and positive action in the final block, in which he does redeem himself somewhat. The scares are too thin on the ground and the details of the plot are left rather undeveloped, not that I mind having the nitty gritty left to the imagination but I definitely prefer to have a few more hints. Still, there are a few chills and the flowing camera-work gives a nicely foreboding atmosphere to the dark and daunting house in the the majority of the films action is set. Overall I'd say this is a worthy little diversion for fans of this sort of film, though it lacks much in the way of spectacle or thrills and isn't even all that tense, it keeps fairly compelling with its drama and is an admirably sincere and serious entry in a genre which was well on its way to collapsing into the swamps of camp long before this film was made. A fair 6/10 from me, though definitely a film for those already predisposed to enjoy it.