AMMIE, COME HOME

At one point in this door-creaking vehicle one character observes that "The house is really turned on tonight!" And turn on it does, with black evil THINGs in the basement, a WASP dybbuk, feathery calls in the night, moving draperies. Caught up in all the terrestrial racket are widowed Ruth, her niece Sara, middle-aged professor Pat and Sara's fiance, Bruce—all plotting and researching in Ruth's haunted Georgetown, Washington, D.C., house. The fantastic four spend anxious hours there, while first Sara, then Pat and Bruce are possessed—then back to the old drawing board at Pat's untenanted digs to unravel the meaning of the latest sortie of the spirits. Turns out that former 18th-century inhabitants—father, daughter and lover—had accomplished a battle ending in two murders. The dauntless 20th-century pairs finally put all ghosts to rest. Old spirits in old bottles.