The Stranger Within (1974 TV Movie) User Reviews

Not as I remembered it...but still well worth seeing.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 13 August 2011]

My wife and I were talking a few years back and we got to talking about movies that freaked us out as kids. Well, it turned out that two made for TV films in particular were scary--and we both remembered them decades later. One was "Crowhaven Farm" and the other was this film, "The Stranger Within". So, I was thrilled to find out that both are finally on DVD and I picked up copies. I was interested to find out that whether or not they really were as weird and scary as I'd remembered. Regardless, the movie sure had an impact on us!

The film begins with a wife (Barbara Eden) telling her husband (George Grizzard) that she was pregnant. Normally this isn't a bad thing, but the husband had gotten a vasectomy three years earlier! And, after he goes to the doctor, the doctor tells him conclusively that he cannot be the father! So who is the father? Is sweet Barbara cheating on him? And if not, HOW?! And, why is she beginning to behave so weirdly?! The answers are freaky....and I don't want to say more as it would clearly spoil the film.

Now seeing the movie several decades later, my impressions of the thing have changed considerably. While I still think it's worth seeing, I noticed three things I never saw as a kid. First, it really wasn't a scary film at all but a weird one. Second, the plot is pretty thin and could have been told better in an hour or less. Third, it's pretty obvious what's going on relatively early in the film and the surprise ending isn't all that surprising. Still, as I just said, it's well worth seeing and is one of the more diverting made for TV films I have seen--even with all its cheesy faults.

Jeannie has a brush with a phenomenon with which Amanda Bellows previously had a brush

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 12 April 2014]

It's pretty obvious that "The Stranger Within" is sort of a "Rosemary's Baby" knockoff with a few tweaks here and there. The big surprise to us viewers is that sweet, cute Barbara Eden CAN look terrifying (check out some of the faces that she makes). The movie itself was mostly what I expected.

Now here's something else. This marks the second time that an "I Dream of Jeannie" cast member has had a brush with a mysterious pregnancy in a movie. Emmaline Henry, who played Amanda Bellows on the show, played a supporting role in "Rosemary's Baby". In fact, the men on the show also appeared in apocalyptic movies: Larry Hagman (Maj. Nelson) co-starred in "Fail-Safe" (a weaker version of "Dr. Strangelove"), and Hayden Rorke (Dr. Bellows) co-starred in "When Worlds Collide" (about an object on a collision course with Earth).

So, it's not a great movie, but I liked it.

All The Ingredients of a Classic Movie. . . .

[filmbuff-31 · 7/10 · 25 May 2006]

This movie has many things going for it. All the best ingredients are here: a great story with a fine cast and writers. I was amazed to find that nearly all of these actors--as well as the director and writer who created the story--were veterans of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. I was lead to expect the finest in performing art from this movie.

Unfortunately, the acting in this movie is its most glaring weakness. Barbara Eden is probably miscast in the leading role. She captures all the moodiness and unpredictability that one would expect of a pregnant woman. The key to understanding what is happening to her character is the explanation of what happened to produce this strange pregnancy. All we get is her strange behavior and a few hints from the actors that point us in the right direction. Those hints, when provided by the actors themselves, are usually a bad sign. But even they are not as bad as the acting itself. Barbara Eden says too little in the leading role and the other actors compensate by overacting their parts--all presumably in an attempt to produce suspense. They would have done well to take a page from Rod Serling's school of acting: namely, that it is what is left unsaid and undone that holds the audience in suspense. The more words that are put in the actors' mouths, the more actions there are for them to perform, the more tedious and incredible the story seems.

This is nowhere better illustrated than in a scene where Barbara Eden's character is behaving especially irrationally. All of the other characters are behaving equally irrationally, and this only amplifies the confusion and suspense produced by Ms. Eden's character. David Doyle, who plays a hypnotist, shouts above the din, "Just let her act out what she feels compelled to do and maybe we can find out what's going on here!" Amen to that!! His is the voice of rationality in the picture.

Bad acting aside, on a positive note, "The Stranger Within" is a compelling story that seeing the movie compels me to read. The movie's and I'm sure the story's presentation hearken back to a time before special effects and sardonic humor: a time when much was left to the viewer's and reader's imagination. Imagination produces the most creative kind of viewing and reading. It's just too bad that in this case the director felt that he needed to supply so many details that were unnecessary to his purpose. A great concept here, but Mr. Serling would no doubt be disappointed.

A woman's unborn baby begins to take control of her mind and body.

[verna55 · 15 September 2000]

Interesting made for TV ROSEMARY'S BABY/EXORCIST type flick, with Barbara Eden in fine form as the expectant mother who begins committing some very bizarre acts after she discovers she's pregnant. This is not at all new territory, though horror/sci-fi author Richard Matheson has managed to add some fairly effective offbeat touches.

Salt and black coffee beat morning sickness!

[Coventry · 7/10 · 31 August 2013]

TV-movies from the 70's are generally fantastic. Whenever I spot the "archive collection" label, or recognize certain names of contemporary writers/directors, I immediately associate the film with intelligent and absorbing plots, atmospheric tension, genuine frights and devoted performances from often underrated but talented actors and actresses. There's something inexplicably magical about these movies and not coincidentally I regularly encounter user comments around here from fellow film freaks that remember and honor certain 70 TV-titles as movies that haunted their dreams ever since childhood. "The Stranger Within" is such a modest but highly efficient and memorable little gem from that era. Perhaps the film owes its existence solely to the tremendous success of "Rosemary's Baby", but it nevertheless it still stands as a solid independent thriller about a handful of touchy subjects like pregnancy issues, marriage and faithfulness. Painter Ann Collins is overjoyed and optimistic when she finds out she's pregnant, even though she had to process a severe trauma 3 years earlier and her loving husband David underwent a vasectomy as a result of it. He can't be the father, but Ann swears she wasn't unfaithful, so they decide to keep the baby. Ann's condition rapidly turns out to be a very unusual, abnormal and even dangerous pregnancy. She puts tons of salt on her food and slurps down gallons of steaming hot black coffee. Even more disturbing is that Ann constantly seeks for cold, sneaks out for long and mysterious nightly excursions and that her body miraculously heals itself from every type of illness. David and his friends desperately look for a medical explanation while Ann isolates herself and increasingly becomes influenced by the unborn baby whose origin remains an enigma. "The Stranger Within" benefices from a powerful first half, with a strong emphasis on marital defiance. The tense interactions between Ann and David after finding out he couldn't have conceived the child are honest and realistic. The second half is more Sci-Fi orientated, but the atmosphere nonetheless remains vulnerable and serene. The movie doesn't feature and bloody massacres or monstrous creatures, but it's definitely unsettling and grim. The basic story comes from the multi-talented veteran author Richard Matheson, so there aren't many better references in the horror industry. I hugely appreciated the climax and the (very) open ending and caught myself still gazing at the screen even long after the end credits were finished.

Quite bleak

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 29 April 2021]

Richard Matheson took his novelette Trespass, threw in a little science-fiction twist and added no small part of Rosemary's Baby to make a completely downbeat 70s exploration of the terrors of pregnancy.

Ann and David Collins (Barbara Eden and George Grizzard) didn't expect to have a baby. After all, she'd had so many issues when they tried before and he's since had a vasectomy. Even though he's sure she's cheated on him, he sticks around but suggests that an abortion might be best. Yet when Ann tries to terminate the pregnancy, she gets in so much pain that the doctor will not perform the procedure.

Things don't get any more normal from there, as Ann begins painting strange visions of alien planets and gets pregnancy cravings for tons of salt, raw meat and black coffee. She also forces herself into the coldest temperatures, begins to exhibit amazing healing abilities and disappears into the mountains for days at a time.

Only her friend Phyllis (Joyce Van Patten) and a hypnotist named Bob (David Doyle) are able to get to the truth. She has been impregnated by someone else and it's an alien who gets drunk on coffee and speaks through her. Woah - this movie gets wild and doesn't let up, as the end has numerous women rising like zombies and carrying their newborn children to an alien where they all leave our world behind.

Lee Phillips also made The Girl Most Likely To... and The Spell, which are also worth looking for if you love TV movies.

Dealing with pre-pardum depression.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 26 April 2021]

A powerful, almost painful performance from Barbara Eden is certainly difficult to watch in this psychological thriller made for TV after her success in sitcoms. With her having had issues before trying to give birth, husband George Grizzard has had a vasectomy but all of his sudden she finds out that she's pregnant. An examination reveals that his vasectomy was successful so naturally she believes he thinks that she cheated on him. But they managed to get past these suspicions and as her pregnancy worsens, her moods change, she becomes addicted to coffee and sugar, disappears to places unknown and is obviously not at all herself. What is going on becomes the mystery, but the audience gets pulled into with, it becomes shocking even if to the realistic viewer, it seems completely far-fetched.

What a performance from Barbara Eden. She obviously seems in agony at times reaching so deeply into herself to play this troubled character, obviously happily married but becoming depressed one moment, suddenly violent and able to speak languages she's never studied, ones that perhaps don't even exist on Earth. Even if they don't try to make her look physically suffering, the intensity in Eden's eyes shows a beauty that is covering something very ugly, and that comes from the secrets that are revealed about how she was able to conceive.

It is easy to mistake this for a supernatural thriller in the mold of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Exorcist", but it is so much more. Grizzard, a terrific stage actor, gives fine support, reacting with brightened love as she gets worse, while David Doyle and Joyce Van Patten are great in supporting roles. The ending of this film is truly gripping, making this one of the better horror movies of the week, although the horror is more psychological than frightening.

Release her from her torment...please!

[moonspinner55 · 4/10 · 28 July 2016]

Barbara Eden stars in this popular, well-regarded TV-movie written by Richard Matheson, expanding his own short story, about a well-heeled professor's wife who announces to her stunned husband that she's two months pregnant--this despite the fact her spouse had a vasectomy three years prior after she suffered a traumatic miscarriage. Eden admirably throws herself into this dramatic role (with its "Exorcist" underpinnings), but it isn't an attractive part for her. The pregnancy makes her disagreeable, uncontrollable, often on the verge of hysteria; she's also speaking in a foreign language, has become addicted to salt and coffee, and reads medical journals at an alarming rate. Director Lee Philips attempts to invest the movie with visual personality (chiming clocks, billowing curtains, a hand-held camera), but he cannot make up for the faults in Matheson's teleplay, which is exceedingly thin (not to mention derivative and anticlimactic). Technically, this is one of the better-made television movies of the 1970s, and the story is certainly involving, but it's eventually depressing and pointless instead of eerie.

A nicely eerie, intelligent and involving 70's sci-fi/horror made-for-TV flick

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 15 September 2006]

Although her sweet, caring schoolteacher husband David (the fine George Grizzard) had a vasectomy three years ago, successful painter Ann Collins (marvelously played with meticulous focus by the lovely Barbara Eden of "I Dream of Jeannie" fame) has somehow managed to become pregnant. Even weirder than Ann miraculously having a bun in the oven is the radical shift in her once normal, now increasingly flipped-out behavior: Ann starts putting way too much salt on her food, gulps down steaming hot black coffee by the gallon, develops a peculiar predilection for freezing cold temperatures, reads sociology books by the dozens, starts talking in an odd unidentifiable foreign tongue, and becomes cranky to the point of being downright hostile. Is Ann going crazy? Or, more disturbing, is the rapidly developing fetus she's carrying some kind of alien creature with potentially malevolent intentions?

This frightfully effective and absorbing made-for-TV domestic sci-fi/horror hybrid mixes elements of "Rosemary's Baby," "The Exorcist" and "The Stepford Wives" into a highly creepy and compelling synthesis, cleverly mining a fine line in flesh-crawling thrills from its quietly unnerving central theme: The placid tranquility of a bland, everyday, affluent upper middle-class suburbanite setting gets totally ripped asunder by inexplicable otherworldly occurrences which defy logical categorization and hence can be neither controlled nor comprehended through ordinary means. Lee Philips' low-key, rather pedestrian direction inadvertently works in the film's favor; his lack of flashy cinematic flourishes and pretty mundane style greatly enhance the movie's vivid and convincing evocation of a plain, average, nothing fancy or unusual environment. Richard ("Duel," "The Night Stalker") Matheson's script is typically sound: intelligent, insightful, mature (e.g., when David first finds out about Ann's condition he accuses her of being unfaithful), mysterious and paranoid, with the fantastic premise made believable and intriguing by grounding it with acutely observed, true-to-life, three-dimensional characters and an uneasy tone which remains pleasingly enigmatic and ambiguous to the very end. Eden and Grizzard are excellent in the leads, making for a thoroughly plausible and appealing middle-aged couple. David Doyle as a kindly, helpful amateur hypnotist, Nehemiah Persoff as a bewildered doctor, and Joyce Van Patten as Ann's concerned, sympathetic best friend contribute sturdy supporting performances. The surprise conclusion with the baby's actual origins finally being revealed packs a socko startling punch. Eerie, understated and above all proficiently done, this nifty chiller diller rates as a serenely unsettling little scarefest.

Good TV movie

[daviddax · 8/10 · 18 April 2020]

Back in the '70s a lot of good made for TV movies came out, including sci-fi/horror and mysteries. "Brotherhood of the Bell," "Something Evil," and "Deadly Dream," to name a few.

Movie of The Week and The Joys of Coffee

[domino1003 · 25 December 2003]

******POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!!!!*****

Ann Collins discovers that she is pregnant. Trouble is, her husband David (George Grizzard)is not the proud papa-to-be. Soon, her behavior changes: Eats raw foods (Especially raw octopus!),HOT coffee and LOTS AND LOTS of salt. She also reads books...by just quickly scanning it with her hand. It is obvious by now that SOMETHING is wrong with this pregnancy, but what? Is the baby the spawn of Satan, or from outer space? Is she going to end up with a permanent case of the jitters by drinking all of that coffee?



This is a pretty good movie-of-the week, and hopefully it will pop up on DVD sometime soon. It's a good laugh in some parts, and it clearly shows its age, but worth looking at.

A baby from outer space!

[Jerry-9 · 10/10 · 12 March 1999]

Barbara is abducted and is now pregnant. Husband realizes that it could not be his child. Wife knows nothing about it except something wrong has happened. A frightful tale about a woman and the baby to come. Is it alien? or human?

Released on DVD-finally!

[PaulJ7460 · 29 January 2010]

If you go to www.warnerarchive.com you can order "The Stranger Within" which is an official release and not a bootleg copy. Note they include a disclaimer that says "not re-mastered for the purposes of this release but taken from the best possible print." Anyway, it would be great for all of us to see our beloved "Jeannie" in a movie where she is clearly a totally different person. David Doyle as the couple's friend is a treat as he puts Eden into a trance so they can find out how she got pregnant. At first, she says nothing but on the second try, she tells them it was an alien. Great fun for the '70's--may be dated today.

The best part about this is the speech she makes at the end...

[bribabylk · 21 August 2007]

*** spoiler signal! ***

... that is presumably coming from the alien fetus inside her, speaking through her mouth. I don't remember it verbatim, but the alien fetus explains its origin and speaks of Earth as a "...hot, heavy land..." It was a nice, little haunting bit of writing, and the makers of the TV movie knew it was the best part of the whole production, because they use it TWICE. The rest of the move is rather flat and lethargic; it's not really scary or even all that suspenseful. I saw this when I was a little kid, when it originally aired on TV in '74, and I remember I was looking forward to it and hoped it would be good because I liked (and still like!) spooky movies and because it starred Barbara Eden who was still pretty fresh from Jeannie at the time, but even as an indiscriminate 7-yr old viewer I was bored and disappointed.