This is a little known, spooky ghost/haunted house movie from the Seventies, that definitely deserves a look if you are interested in this genre (assuming you can find a copy).
Tagline: “She had no one to play with for thirty years.”
AKA: Full Circle is the original British release title; The Haunting of Julia was the eventual U.S. release title.
WTF Factor: **
Notable Dialogue:
- Mark [facetiously, to the medium before the séance]: “Do we get to hold hands in the dark, Mrs. Flood?”
- Mrs. Flood: “Of course we do, dear.”
- Mark: “What if the spirits nick the silver?”
- Mrs. Flood: “Spirits can’t do anything on their own, dear. Not in the material way. They have to have someone on this side for them to do it through first. And if they do want something, it ain’t normally the silver.”
Synopsis: We start with a haunting [ahem] piano theme and pan to the window of a large house in London. We see a little blonde girl, Katie, winding up a clown doll that plays the cymbals during the credits.
Katie is the daughter of Julia (Mia Farrow) and Magnus Lofting (Keir Dullea). After a brief, warm scene of Julia and her daughter interacting while preparing breakfast, an aloof Magnus enters and wants Julia to sign some papers related to her trust fund. Suddenly Katie starts to choke on a piece of apple. She can’t breathe despite her parents’ interventions. Magnus calls 911 while Julia, panicking, attempts to perform a tracheotomy. By the time help arrives, Katie is dead.
We next see Julia in a hospital bed, nearly catatonic. At some later date, Julia’s doctor informs her that she is well enough to go home. While the doctor consults with Magnus about her follow-up care, Julia bolts for the outside door, jumping into a cab with Magnus in pursuit.
At some later point, Julia takes possession of an old furnished house from a racist real estate agent. As she explores, she finds a disheveled child’s room. She unpacks her suitcase, pulling out souvenirs of her daughter, including the clown doll, discovering a sharp edge on the cymbals.
Next we see Julia having lunch with Magnus’ sister Lily. Lily reproaches Julia for her behavior toward Magnus, while Julia begs Lily not to tell Magnus where she is. She says that the marriage has been over for a long time. Walking in the park after lunch, Julia briefly sees a blonde girl about Katie’s age.
One night Julia locks herself out of the house. She crawls in a basement window and scrapes her leg. The blood freaks her out and she begs Katie for forgiveness.
She gets a clear case of the willies, and after fussing with the bedroom heater, yells downstairs for Magnus to get out of the house.
The next morning she is happily unwrapping new dishes when the phone rings. It’s Magnus, ordering her to come home immediately. Julia mumbles that she IS home, but Magnus goes on to say that he will have her doctor invalidate any contracts she signs. Julia hangs up. She doesn’t pick up when the phone rings again.
Going up the stairs, she is frightened by her reflection in an antique mirror carried by her friend Mark Berkeley (Tom Conti), who let himself in when she didn’t answer the door.
Julia is delighted to see Mark, who warns her that Magnus knows where she is. Magnus has accused Mark of coming between them, which embarrasses Julia. She and Mark have an easy, comfortable relationship.
Lily admonishes Magnus for spying on Julia. Magnus says he will get Julia back no matter what.
Julia grabs a bench on the playground and starts taking Polaroids of the children playing [my, times have changed]. She sees the little blonde girl in the sand box area, working on something with her back turned. When Julia tries to go to her, the girl disappears. Julia goes to the place the child was playing and digs up a scalpel and a mutilated dead turtle.
A boy and his mother make a big scene and Julia runs home to wash off the blood. There she sees that the beige skirt with a blood stain she wore during the break-in has turned dark brown and the soaking water is bloody-looking.
Julia breaks down but is interrupted by a phone call from Lily, who is looking for a venue for her monthly meeting with a medium. Julia agrees to host the group. When Lily arrives with the medium, Mrs. Flood (Anna Wing), she is disconcerted to see that Julia has invited Mark. As the others arrive, there is discussion as to whether the presence of two newbies will disrupt the process. Mrs. Flood points out that she never accepts money for her gift, and that spirits cannot do anything material except through a human.
The group forms a séance circle and nothing happens for a while.
Mrs. Flood: “Someone here is having difficulties.”
Julia immediately leaves the circle, followed by Mark. The circle closes and the séance begins again. Mrs. Flood is suddenly disturbed and ends the séance. Julia asks her what she saw, and a horrified Mrs. Flood tells Julia to leave the house. Just then one of the guests manages to fall down the stairs and the meeting breaks up.
Mark and Julia drive some of the participants home and Julia accompanies Mrs. Flood to her door.
Notable Dialogue:
- Mrs. Flood: “You must go away.”
- Julia: “It’s all right, I can stay for a few minutes.”
- Mrs. Flood: “No, the house. Your house. You must leave it. Get out.”
- Julia: “Why?”
- Mrs. Flood: “There’s wickedness. Bad things.”
- Julia: “Mrs. Flood, please. What did you see?”
- Mrs. Flood: “A child.”
Mrs. Flood breaks down when Julia asks if the child is a blonde girl and Julia gets no answer.
Magnus confronts Mark and asks for his help getting Julia to see a doctor. Mark correctly discerns that Magnus plans to convince the doctor that Julia is incompetent and throws him out.
Magnus goes to Julia’s house and tries to break in. A neighbor catches him and is battered for his trouble. Magnus tries to open the back door using a credit card; it doesn’t work, but then the latch falls open and he goes in.
Meanwhile, Julia is spending the night at Mark’s store, which doubles as his home. Mark is quite skeptical about the séance, but Julia is very serious.
Julia: “I keep feeling…Kate…in the house, in the park. And I feel such hatred.”
Mark: “Why should Kate hate you? You tried to save her life. If anybody is trying to upset you, it’s Magnus.”
Magnus creeps all over the house, handling Julia’s things. In the bedroom he picks up the clown doll, which clangs back at him after he puts it down. He becomes ill, and keeps rubbing his throat, ostensibly because the bedroom heater is stuck on, yet again. He hears noises downstairs and assumes that it’s Julia. The noises lead him down to the sub-basement.
If you had any doubts that Magnus is emotionally abusive, his monologue here will set those to rest. Meanwhile we see a shadow and a camera shot slowly moving through the darkness. Suddenly Magnus falls through the rails of the steps and ends up on the floor with his throat cut. The light clicks off.
When Julia returns the next morning, the neighbor’s wife, Claudia Branscombe, warns her that Magnus broke in last night. Julia invites her in and questions her about the house’s previous owners, who were two elderly sisters. Before that, there was a “most unfortunate” woman, Heather Rudge, who lived there with her daughter. Claudia says the daughter died choking on something.
Julia goes back to see Mrs. Flood, who says that the child she saw was a boy, dying in the park. Mark is highly skeptical that this has anything to do with Julia, who becomes annoyed and runs off to the library to learn about the little boy, if she can. She looks though mountains of newspapers from the 1930’s and finally finds the article she is looking for.
That night, Julia senses someone outside the bedroom and tells them not to be frightened.
Julia locates the mother of the murdered boy, Geoffrey Braden, and visits her. Mrs. Braden (Mary Morris) wants to know why Julia is interested in learning the truth when no one else is. She says that the man who was executed for the crime was not guilty, and her son was tortured when “they” killed him.
Mrs. Braden: “I know what they did to my son. They mutilated him and they killed him.”
Julia: “They?”
Mrs. Braden: “The children, Mrs. Lofting. The pretty English children.”
She knows the names of the children and has kept track of them over the years. None of them have lived happy lives. Two are still alive and Mrs. Braden hopes Julia will visit them.
Julia’s first stop is the proper Captain (“Please call me anything but Captain”) Paul Winter (Edward Hardwicke), but he refuses to discuss anything about the past with her. Next, she visits David Swift (Robin Gammell), who is anything but proper. He readily admits that the executed tramp was innocent of Geoffrey’s murder, and since Julia is living in Heather Rudge’s old house, he wonders if Julia has talked to her. He says after her daughter died, Heather was put in a mental hospital, but she is still alive.
Swift says that he knew Olivia Rudge, Heather’s daughter, very well.
Julia: What was she like?
Swift: To look at, about the most beautiful thing in the world. She could make you do anything. Absolutely anything.
“Anything” included killing animals and learning about sex (“one way or another”), as well as killing Geoffrey Braden. Olivia smothered him while the others held him down, and then she apparently castrated him.
At the time, Swift told Olivia’s mother what had happened and he was glad Olivia died soon after. At this point, Julia edges out of the room while Swift tries to get her to stay and “return my company.”
That night, Julia takes some sleeping pills. We see the moving camera come into Julia’s bedroom, at about child height. A hand roams over Julia’s face and shoulders; it isn’t clear if it’s her own hand or not. It stops when the phone rings, but Julia doesn’t answer.
Swift heads down the stairs of his apartment building, slips on some broken glass, and falls over the banister to his death.
The next morning, Julia is preoccupied until Mark calls and insists that she come over to his store. She tells Mark most of the story and says she now knows she needs to help Olivia. Mark is clearly skeptical of the her conclusions. Julia angrily says she is going to Wales to talk to Heather Rudge and Mark insists that he will come with her.
Julia goes home and lays around tracing patterns on the carpet. She finds the bedroom heater stuck in the ‘on’ position and in a fit of temper pulls the electrical wiring.
Meanwhile, Mark gets set to take a bath, seemingly in the middle of his shop. As Mark bathes, we see Julia sitting on the stairs in her house, and then she’s gone. Somehow a lamp falls into the tub with Mark, who is electrocuted. We see a shadow passing by the shop.
It’s morning and Julia is singing to herself and then gets the giggles. She heads to Wales on her own and meets with Heather Rudge (Cathleen Nesbitt) at an unpleasant mental care facility. Heather is perpetually smiling until Julia brings up Olivia.
Notable Dialogue:
- Julia: “I know how difficult it’s been for you because my daughter’s dead too.”
- Heather: “Dead? Not dead.”
- Julia: “But…sorry?”
- Heather: “Look at me. Look at me. I am the one who is dead. All safe and dead, all safe and dead. Have you ever seen evil, nice Mrs. Lofting? I have. I’m safe, though. Evil is, is not like ordinary people. Evil never dies. She’s not dead, not dead. And you’re not safe [pause]…Why?…[revelation] You killed your daughter.”
- Julia: “NO. Oh no.”
- Heather: “Oh yes, oh yes you did, like I killed mine. That wretched, evil creature, I killed her.”
Heather says that Olivia laughed when she asked her about the murder, and that she “choked on her own wickedness.” She screams at Julia to go away and Julia flees. Then Julia turns back for a moment.
Heather looks into her eyes and has an apparent heart attack as Julia walks away.
Back at home, Julia dries her hair from the rain and sees a glimpse of Olivia in the mirror. She goes downstairs and finds Olivia waiting with the clown doll.
Julia claims the toy and welcomes Olivia into her open arms.
As the camera swirls around the chair, we see Olivia approaching Julia, and when the camera makes a full circle, we see that Julia’s throat has been cut. She looks peaceful.
Thoughts: I have been unusually thorough with this synopsis because it is difficult to find a good print of this movie. The Haunting of Julia/Full Circle is an evocatively shot, widescreen movie where camera shots and framing is significant for the story. As you can see from the screenshots, the lighting is deliberately gloomy and sometimes downright dark, for the most part, which really makes the movie difficult to watch on the poor prints found on YouTube. For some reason, most of the prints out there are cropped. Even the version for rent on Amazon Prime is of mediocre quality, although it does retain the widescreen format. In that original format, you can see that Julia is frequently relegated to a small portion of the screen, emphasizing her loneliness. Richard Loncraine was not a prolific director (his best known movie is probably the Ian McKellen version of Richard III (1995), but he is clearly in sympathy with the material here.
The performances are uniformly excellent from a mostly British/Canadian cast (the movie was partially funded by the Canadian Film Development Corporation). Mia Farrow is at her loveliest and brings that same steely fragility here that she applied so effectively in Rosemary’s Baby (1968).
The movie is based on the novel Julia by Peter Straub, with some distinct changes/arguable improvements. In the book, for example, Mark Berkeley is not Julia’s personal friend, but Magnus’ half-brother who sort of befriends Julia, adding an unnecessary layer of motivational ambiguity and leaving Julia with absolutely no one to trust. The book emphasizes that Magnus (and Lily) want to keep control of Julia for her money. The ending of the novel is also quite different.
I have to admit a special fondness for ghost/haunted house stories that are (mostly) ambiguous as to the supernatural elements. The classic example would be The Haunting (1963, of course; let’s not discuss the execrable 1999 remake). You can certainly approach The Haunting of Julia as a tale of either the supernatural or mental illness. I personally lean toward both being in play. I find it easy to attribute all of the unfortunate events in the house as being directly Olivia’s work. There’s no evidence indicating that Julia herself killed Magnus. It’s much harder to imagine Olivia venturing forth across London to Kill Swift and Mark, but that goes back to Mrs. Flood’s remark that spirits need human agents to manifest physically. Certainly Julia undergoes a major mental deterioration beginning the night of David Swift’s death. There are definite suggestions that she might be possessed by Olivia, especially when “Julia” gives the look of death to Olivia’s mother. Of course, your mileage may vary from mine; I’d love to hear alternate interpretations.
This movie is a veritable definition of a “slow burn” experience. If you are in the mood for a leisurely-paced, atmospheric, and open-to-interpretation ghost story, you should definitely check this one out, in a decent, widescreen print.
Quick bits:
- There is an excellent piano/orchestral/electronic score by Colin Towns. I watched this movie several times back in the 1990’s and never forgot the piano theme, which I still find unbearably sad (you can find excerpts from the score on YouTube).
- For some reason, Mark’s death scene is scored to Speedy Gonzales, a remarkably racist Pat Boone song from 1963.
- The movie was not released in the U.S. until 1981.
Suggested double feature: Don’t Look Now (1973) comes to mind immediately, with Donald Sutherland following what he believes to be the figure of his dead daughter around Venice.
Tagline for Coming Attraction: “The picture that crawls right up your spine!” [And no, it’s not The Tingler (1959)]
