Greetings! Discovered your site while looking up memories from my childhood and now have it bookmarked.
There is a short I remember airing on HBO in the early 1980s — it wasn't terrifying, but it was a little chilling. It involved a violinist who kept driving past a mansion that she couldn't get out of her mind. Eventually she noticed it was for sale and decided to check it out, and the butler told her the house was haunted. She said that that didn't bother her, and he said something to the effect of "Why should it? You're the one who haunts it." The violinist's jaw dropped and the film faded out.
I haven't been able to find this one anywhere, and like I said it wasn't terrifying, but it was chilling in the same way that childhood ghost stories were. Does anyone remember this film short, and more importantly, what it was called?
Thanks much!
Dustin in Minnesota
It sounds like the Night Gallery episode "The House", starring Joanna Pettet.
Thanks a bunch Lynette!
Dustin, you can watch the episode Lynette mentioned for free on Hulu here:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/12313
Let us know if that's the one!
Fingers crossed.
I knew this sounded recently familiar, but it wasn't from a movie or show I had watched. Then I remembered:
I have this story in my book "True Ghost Stories" from 1982. This supposedly happened in Scotland between a Mrs. Boulton and the owner Lady Beresford at the historic Ballachulish mansion.
Thank you Squeaky and Unkle, but this actually isn't it. In the short I saw (which I'm almost positive was on HBO), the woman did not know she was haunting the house.
It was otherwise incredibly similar – she keeps picturing this house and then finds it. In the one I saw, I *want* to say that perhaps a year had passed in the short before she did find the house. I do recall her playing concert violin on a stage of some kind at one point. The person answering the door when she finally arrives tells her the house is haunted, and she was the one haunting it.
If it helps, I saw this on HBO (as a "Short and Special") several times around 1981-83.
Thanks again, though. I did enjoy watching this during lunch at work.
Dustin, I very clearly remember this short film on HBO. Like you, it has remained with me all these years. Sadly, I do not know the name of the film but I'd love to see it again.