This movie begins where a lady living in England with her father is tormented by the memories of her childhood as an illiterate struggling to read. Her father teases her and nags her about going to school and learning how to read so that she can get a job. The lady, Eunice ends up going to America instead and becomes a housekeeper for a wealthy doctor and his family. Eunice learns how to manipulate people into getting what she wants because she cannot read and becomes a living nightmare for the family. She soon befriends a local church going lady and finds comfort in meeting someone just as crazy and insane as she is. The two become like a Bonny and Clyde team and take on the doctor and his family for revenge. I liked this movie, but it was not a movie that I would remember or even rent again. But it is worth a watch but only if there are no other horror movies your interested in on the shelf.
12 Reviews
She cooks, she cleans, she kills ... but she doesn't read.
brendanrau21 April 2009
Warning: Spoilers
It's unfortunate that this adaptation of Ruth Rendell's excellent novella "A Judgement in Stone" has dispensed with Giles Mont and replaced him with the comparatively weakly drawn Bobby Coverdale. Giles, the possibly autistic son of Jacqueline Coverdale, is an exquisite foil to Eunice Parchman; both Giles and Eunice isolate themselves from society, though Giles does so by obsessive reading, and Eunice does so by obsessively avoiding the printed word. Giles, through an indefatigable search for his spiritual leanings, also works as a foil to Joan Smith, whose shallow but militant religious fanaticism drives her to conspire in the murder of the Coverdales.
Rita Tushingham is excellent as Eunice Parchman, but she alone can't make up for what the screenplay lacks. What a shame.
Rita Tushingham is excellent as Eunice Parchman, but she alone can't make up for what the screenplay lacks. What a shame.
UGH! Very Creepy!
Ddey6524 April 1999
Rita Tushingham stars as a dyslexic British maid, and formerly abused child who's a little too sensitive about not being able to read. This is NOT a common slasher film, by any long shot, as these types of films were in the 1970's and '80's. After seeing what she does in the kitchen, I've barely been able to hold a knife, or even think about similar scenes from horror films for months. As of this writing, I can't get that scene, or an equally gruesome one from "Parents," out of my mind...and neither will you. And worse, you may even sympathize with her!
Lacklustre Adaptation
anxietyresister3 June 2006
Based on a Ruth Rendell novel, this is the tale of a young English girl called Eunice who goes to America to be the maid of a rich family. On the surface she seems to be the perfect worker and an excellent cook, but underneath festers years of resentment at being mocked because she can't read. She also has strange visions with lots of blood, and has a surprisingly quick temper.. a fact that her father has already found out to his cost. Her only friend after relocating to the States is a religious nut who used to be a prostitute, and thanks to her influence, Eunice is slowly pushed over the edge..
This is a rather dull psychological thriller which finally comes to life ten minutes before the end. Of course, by then it's too little too late. Rita Tushingham does a marvellous job in making Eunice a believable character with her solitary ways and slow decline into insanity. However, the screenplay doesn't give her enough to do other than hide in cupboards and peek round doors while listening to secret conversations. There is also a tedious half brother/sister relationship that could have easily been left on the cutting room floor, and a cute dog that always turns up where it's least wanted. This sort of thing was done better in the 90's on ITV when Rendell's books were divided into 120 minute episodes. Here it looks like they've had a bigger budget, but to the script and film's detriment. I give it a 3/10
This is a rather dull psychological thriller which finally comes to life ten minutes before the end. Of course, by then it's too little too late. Rita Tushingham does a marvellous job in making Eunice a believable character with her solitary ways and slow decline into insanity. However, the screenplay doesn't give her enough to do other than hide in cupboards and peek round doors while listening to secret conversations. There is also a tedious half brother/sister relationship that could have easily been left on the cutting room floor, and a cute dog that always turns up where it's least wanted. This sort of thing was done better in the 90's on ITV when Rendell's books were divided into 120 minute episodes. Here it looks like they've had a bigger budget, but to the script and film's detriment. I give it a 3/10
Not a patch on the book
jcurrie58-119 March 2023
I read the novel years ago and very much enjoyed it. I was looking forward to seeing this film adaptation but was very much disappointed. For a start, moving the action from the UK to America (though filmed in Canada) was a big mistake. For instance, how does an illiterate woman manage to apply for a passport and a visa? It just doesn't make sense. Also, I felt Rita Tushingham, although a good actress, was too sympathetic for the part of Eunice. The contrast between the upper-middle class snobbish Coverdales and the working class Eunice and Joan Smith was better portrayed in Rendell's novel. Giles, the nerdish stepson, was much more bland in this movie. All in all, a disappointment. Stick to the book.
The Housekeeper aka A Judgement in Stone (1986)
chinchillaka20 February 2017
Warning: Spoilers
The Housekeeper (1986) is an adaptation of murder/mystery writer, Ruth Rendel's A Judgement in Stone. The film adaptation revolves around a British Housekeeper (Rita Tushingham) who hops the pond to escape her troubled, disadvantaged life to look after a wealthy US family who want to assume the clichéd image of having a British Housekeeper. She desperately hides her illiteracy, ashamed of not being able to read and emphatically fears being belittled by the stark higher class division. She is befriended by another outsider, a religious fanatic and reformed lady of the night to find a kindred spirit and an unlikely friendship forms. The housekeeper's lack of social interaction and illiteracy start to encroach on propriety and the family start to view her as a burden. When her inability to read is discovered, she feels exposed and reacts badly leading to her dismissal. Feeling hard done by and crushed by her worst fears coming true she seeks solace in her friend who offers a unique solution....... This US film is a far cry from the book coming across more like a B movie targeting the teen market rather than the well written story it is. There's not enough mystery for the ending to be shocking, like in the slow reveal of the book. However, as much as it could have been improved, I still enjoyed this film and it's plot turns. Not for everyone but not bad.
Eunice can't read, but she can surely raise hell!
Coventry25 August 2021
"A Judgment in Stone", aka "The Housekeeper" perhaps isn't the greatest horror movie/thriller ever made, but it definitely is one of the most original, unique and unconventional films you'll ever see in your lifetime! Based on a novel nobody knew it existed, let alone read, the plot revolves around a timid and extremely introvert middle-class British lady - named Eunice - who never learned how to read and who takes care of her ailing but domineering father. When he obliges Eunice to go back to school to finally learn how to read, she's so terrified to relive her primary school traumas that she kills her father. At the advice of a friend, she applies for the job of family housekeeper in America. Eunice finds work in the home of a prominent doctor, his kind second wife and the teenage son and daughter they both have from a previous marriage. Everything goes well at first, but Eunice desperately must hide the fact she cannot read. When she befriends the nosy and hysterical bible-freak neighbor Joan, and come more under her influence, the situation dramatically escalates.
The strongest asset of "The Housekeeper" is undoubtedly its unpredictability. From sequences earlier in the film, we know that Eunice is capable of murdering, but it's nevertheless difficult to imagine she will go on another and far more intentional killing spree. I can guarantee, however, that the denouement is brutal and genuinely shocking, and it more than widely compensates for the admittedly rather boring and uneventful middle section (even though the uncanniness level is maintained throughout the entire film). Evidently, and this is a big weakness, you can't help wondering the whole time why Eunice simply doesn't confess to her employers that she's illiterate. What's the worst that could happen to her, really? Rita Tushingham, the actress playing Eunice, is stupendous, but Jackie Burroughs is possibly even more genius as the totally derailed Joan. Furthermore, the story touches upon certain delicate themes that were still very much taboo in the mid-80s, like romances between stepsiblings. Good film, very obscure, but worth tracking down.
The strongest asset of "The Housekeeper" is undoubtedly its unpredictability. From sequences earlier in the film, we know that Eunice is capable of murdering, but it's nevertheless difficult to imagine she will go on another and far more intentional killing spree. I can guarantee, however, that the denouement is brutal and genuinely shocking, and it more than widely compensates for the admittedly rather boring and uneventful middle section (even though the uncanniness level is maintained throughout the entire film). Evidently, and this is a big weakness, you can't help wondering the whole time why Eunice simply doesn't confess to her employers that she's illiterate. What's the worst that could happen to her, really? Rita Tushingham, the actress playing Eunice, is stupendous, but Jackie Burroughs is possibly even more genius as the totally derailed Joan. Furthermore, the story touches upon certain delicate themes that were still very much taboo in the mid-80s, like romances between stepsiblings. Good film, very obscure, but worth tracking down.
Ten years before Claude chabrol.
ulicknormanowen26 May 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Ruth Rendell 's thriller is arguably her finest book :I must have read it three times ; it displays her concern for education which is present in some of her other books too.As a writer, Rendell's main problem, IMHO, is that there are too many characters and too many subplots in her post 1990 works; "a judgement in stone ' does not suffer for it .The story is linear , clear and very convincing.
The opening scene is excellent: Eunice is still a little girl and the teacher asks her to read : she can't , the whole class sneers at her ,and she urinates on the floor .It shows the girl's hatred for letters ,for books and education and her shame ,her humiliation (to be illiterate in our society is as appalling as to be disabled :many of these illiterate people could probably have been "saved" , had the school be given the means with very small number of pupils in certain classes); Eunice's hatred and humiliation emerge again when she burns the magazines, when she pretends she's broken her spectacles,and when she cannot read the shopping list ; the greenhouse episode is not from the novel,but it highlights the maid's problem.More than Joan Smith 's religious ravings , it's the feeling to be different that leads the unfortunate girl to crime. It's more obvious in the highly superior Claude Chabrol's " la cérémonie" based on the same book :the French director ,whose hatred for bourgeois people is blatant in his best works , made the Coverdale -the name was frenchified -nice but condescending and unbearable in their life of luxury .
But it takes great actors to convey such subtleties: Jean -Pierre Cassel and mainly Jackie Bisset were the perfect couple ,here we're left with two insignificant actors;the same goes for Melinda,the daughter ,who is botched : she was more sympathic to the maid, offering to teach her reading ; an user has pointed out too,quite rightly so,the disappearance of the reserved highbrow Giles Mont (replaced by a bland Bobby).
Only Rita Tushingham plays her game well ,mainly in her first part ;although her director/husband insists too much on her threatening side ,she's the only one who compares favorably with Sandrine Bonnaire's performance in "la cérémonie " .If looks could kill,hers certainly would.
On the other hand Jackie Burroughs overplays and she's almost unbearable : if she regrets so much her life of sin in the past ,why does the director dress her like a prostitute ?Chabrol had a stroke of genius :he made Joan a hypocrit -which she was more or less in the novel- , and put a lot of humor in her character ,helped by his wonderful interpret ,Isabelle Huppert.
As for the ending ,Chabrol wins hands down : his use of the video recorder (replacing the simple tape recorder of the novel)is another strong idea ,faithful to the book, whereas Rawi's directing is flat ,devoid of suspense : it looks like you are in " Friday the thirteen's umpteenth number";and the final scene,in spite of the ambiguous phone call makes you think that ,in case of success,there could have been a "judgment in stone 2": here the screenwriters misrepresent what Rendell had in mind : the very title of the book tells it all :how can you judge such an impenetrable person,who is completely insane when the story ends :check the final words of the book;even you and me, who are (more of less) sane human beings ,we can't understand this mumbo jumbo.
It would hardly deserve a 5 ,but I'll give an extra star for Miss Tushingham 's performance.
The opening scene is excellent: Eunice is still a little girl and the teacher asks her to read : she can't , the whole class sneers at her ,and she urinates on the floor .It shows the girl's hatred for letters ,for books and education and her shame ,her humiliation (to be illiterate in our society is as appalling as to be disabled :many of these illiterate people could probably have been "saved" , had the school be given the means with very small number of pupils in certain classes); Eunice's hatred and humiliation emerge again when she burns the magazines, when she pretends she's broken her spectacles,and when she cannot read the shopping list ; the greenhouse episode is not from the novel,but it highlights the maid's problem.More than Joan Smith 's religious ravings , it's the feeling to be different that leads the unfortunate girl to crime. It's more obvious in the highly superior Claude Chabrol's " la cérémonie" based on the same book :the French director ,whose hatred for bourgeois people is blatant in his best works , made the Coverdale -the name was frenchified -nice but condescending and unbearable in their life of luxury .
But it takes great actors to convey such subtleties: Jean -Pierre Cassel and mainly Jackie Bisset were the perfect couple ,here we're left with two insignificant actors;the same goes for Melinda,the daughter ,who is botched : she was more sympathic to the maid, offering to teach her reading ; an user has pointed out too,quite rightly so,the disappearance of the reserved highbrow Giles Mont (replaced by a bland Bobby).
Only Rita Tushingham plays her game well ,mainly in her first part ;although her director/husband insists too much on her threatening side ,she's the only one who compares favorably with Sandrine Bonnaire's performance in "la cérémonie " .If looks could kill,hers certainly would.
On the other hand Jackie Burroughs overplays and she's almost unbearable : if she regrets so much her life of sin in the past ,why does the director dress her like a prostitute ?Chabrol had a stroke of genius :he made Joan a hypocrit -which she was more or less in the novel- , and put a lot of humor in her character ,helped by his wonderful interpret ,Isabelle Huppert.
As for the ending ,Chabrol wins hands down : his use of the video recorder (replacing the simple tape recorder of the novel)is another strong idea ,faithful to the book, whereas Rawi's directing is flat ,devoid of suspense : it looks like you are in " Friday the thirteen's umpteenth number";and the final scene,in spite of the ambiguous phone call makes you think that ,in case of success,there could have been a "judgment in stone 2": here the screenwriters misrepresent what Rendell had in mind : the very title of the book tells it all :how can you judge such an impenetrable person,who is completely insane when the story ends :check the final words of the book;even you and me, who are (more of less) sane human beings ,we can't understand this mumbo jumbo.
It would hardly deserve a 5 ,but I'll give an extra star for Miss Tushingham 's performance.
How the judgment is made
trashgang18 December 2008
A bit of a weird one this flick, a bit hard to find too, because it's a Ruth Rendall mystery. But this tale is filmed in a creepy way, it isn't your average thriller or frightening horror flick, it just get's you by the throat. First we noticed a girl with dyslexia being thrown away by society and her father. Sure, this flick has a message but you get it afterwards when the movie is over. When you're not "normal" and doesn't walk the line you will be torn apart. Nice to see too that they dare to speak about a new family were brother and sister, only by the law but have different mothers, fall in love. I liked this one a lot even that there isn't almost no blood. It's the atmosphere, you even start to get some feelings for the dislexia girl, it could happen in real life. If you ever see this flick in your local store, don't hesitate. And the good old cockney accent really did it for me.
There is no fear greater than illiteracy.
ThrownMuse8 March 2007
Rita Tushingham plays a British woman who murders her father and has an even worse secret: she's illiterate! Oh no! What to do? She moves to America to become a housekeeper for a (rather dysfunctional?!) wealthy family. All is fine and dandy until she flubs up on watering the patriarch's beloved plants because she can't read the instructions he left for her while they were on vacay. This is mostly dull, but has nice touches like incestuous step-sibs, the housekeeper's hilarious whore-turned-religious-freak gal-pal, and a finale that's to die for. Tushingham is excellent as always and revels in the mousiness of her character.
Interesting Psychodrama
emilywallace-4975816 July 2020
The Housekeeper is a reasonable adaptation of A Judgement in Stone with some dramatic license here and there. Rita Tushingham stars as an illiterate anti-social who murders her father and gets a job as the housekeeper to a wealthy family. She befriends the local busybody and religious freak and they develop a disturbing friendship that leads to murder.
It's not too hard to see where The Housekeeper is going early on. You know the titular character will lose her mind and blood will be shed but this film is interesting enough to leave you wondering how this will all go down and it's still pretty grisly once it does.
Tushingham is wonderful as Eunice and Jackie Burroughs plays to the cheap seats as Joan, the religious freak who gets Eunice mixed up in her own insanity. Everyone else is fine at best.
It's not too hard to see where The Housekeeper is going early on. You know the titular character will lose her mind and blood will be shed but this film is interesting enough to leave you wondering how this will all go down and it's still pretty grisly once it does.
Tushingham is wonderful as Eunice and Jackie Burroughs plays to the cheap seats as Joan, the religious freak who gets Eunice mixed up in her own insanity. Everyone else is fine at best.
To read can kill
stefanozucchelli14 November 2021
Interesting horror movie based on a successful book, in which a psychopath is hired as a maid and kills the whole family.
The triggers of her murderous rampage are a fanatically religious neighbor and her illiteracy which, when discovered, sends her into crisis.
It is puzzling how a seemingly innocuous fact like knowing how to read can trigger such madness. There is a deep conflict between the rich, educated and literate family and the maid of humble origins, illiterate and raised by a psychotic father who left her with the disease.
The triggers of her murderous rampage are a fanatically religious neighbor and her illiteracy which, when discovered, sends her into crisis.
It is puzzling how a seemingly innocuous fact like knowing how to read can trigger such madness. There is a deep conflict between the rich, educated and literate family and the maid of humble origins, illiterate and raised by a psychotic father who left her with the disease.
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