"You're in Trouble, Big Boy!"

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The American legal system does not have its most shining moment in "Murder in My House." An innocent woman, Mandy Ellis, was convicted of murdering her psychiatrist neighbor, based on flimsy evidence, and the real murderer is still at large and ready to wreak havoc on the new owners of home where the shrink was killed.

The new occupants of the tainted house are Stan Douglas and his daughter Lauren. Stan is a retired prosecutor, who looks at the evidence of the murder case and realizes that there has been a miscarriage of justice. Unfortunately, Stan is slow in recognizing the true perp and will become another casualty of the psychopath.

There was an interesting stylistic touch in bringing back the ghost of Roxanne, another murder victim of the killer. Roxanne returns to taunt the murderer with such delicious lines as, "you're in trouble, Big Boy!" The effect that she has on the killer is the opposite of the ghosts who return to visit Charles Dickens' Scrooge. Instead of resulting in a Scrooge-like repentance, the haunting words of Roxanne goad the perp on to more dastardly deeds as he falls deeper into a psychotic stupor.

If there is a theme or undercurrent to the film, it is the inseparable bonding of a mother and her daughter. Lauren had lost her own daughter in a tragic auto accident. She now writes children's books in honor of her beloved Stephanie.

When Lauren realizes that Mandy has been falsely imprisoned and separated from her little girl Sydney, Lauren studies the notes of her late father and conducts the key interview with Claire that will finally lead to the truth that will free Mandy and return her to Sydney. There was an especially nice human touch in the film's reunion scene.

Welcome, home, Mandy

score /10

lavatch 5 December 2019

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5300961/