Rita Stevens

Rita Stevens is the main antagonist of the 1982 Australian murder-mystery film Next Of Kin (alternatively titled Hell House). She is the aunt of the film's protagonist, Linda Stevens and incidentally, she is not seen as Rita until the end of the film.

She is portrayed by Bernadette Gibson.

History
Rita Stevens and her younger sister (whose first name isn't known, so she is known as "Mrs. Stevens") open a retirement home called the Montclare Nursing Center. They hire workers, bring in patients, and administrate it while dividing the profits equally. Eventually, Mrs. Stevens had a child: Linda Stevens. Mrs. Stevens needed more money to ensure Linda had a good future, complete with education, housing etc. However, in order to get more money, she had to get Rita's share of the money. Mrs. Stevens and a friend of the family, Doctor Barton, have Rita relocated to an unknown Nursing Home. Rita was infuriated, and sent them death-threats until one day, they receive word that Rita died.

Later, strange things begin happening at the Montclare Nursing Home. Three of these incidents involved two patients, and Mrs. Stevens' friend Ms. Cartwright being found dead in their bathtubs via drowning, but these were passed off as accidents. A four year old Linda found one of the bodies and was traumatized by it. Haunting incidents continued to occur, such as Mrs. Stevens hearing footsteps in the halls at night or her seeing silhouettes watching her through the window. She developed acute insomnia, resulting in sleep-deprivation induced psychosis. About twenty years later, Mrs. Stevens died of unknown causes, but left the Montclare Nursing Center to Linda in her will.

After Linda takes over the center's administration and meets the estate manager Connie, she takes in a new resident: Mrs. Ryan and her aide Kelvin. After showing Mrs. Ryan to her room, she finds her mother's diary which contains her day-to-day experiences, including seeing the silhouette watching her. Shortly after this, Linda herself sees a silhouette watching her through the window. Linda also reads about the day when she (Linda) found the drowned patient in the bathtub. Soon afterwards, a patient named Mr. Collins is found dead in the bathtub. Doctor Barton, who now has an inflated ego, arrives and says Mr. Collins had a heart-attack before leaving. However, Barton is called back when another patient, Lance, has a mini-stroke.

Lance survives and tells Linda that her Aunt Rita didn't actually die. How he knows this is never confirmed. She is skeptical about this, but her suspicions are confirmed when she discovers that Doctor Barton was receiving checks from someone named "Rita" until just recently. Barton ensures Linda that Rita died in a nursing home across the country. Linda has a conversation with her boyfriend Barney about how she suspects that maybe something evil really is in the nursing home like her mother thought. Barney tells her that Mr. Collins had a horrible accident and that everything is fine. He then goes to a party with their friend Carol.

Later, after reading more from her mother's diary, Linda learns that Connie and Doctor Barton really are hiding something when she eavesdrops on their conversations during which Barton admits to lying to something, although Linda does not know what. She goes through the center's files and learns that Doctor Barton wrote the death certificates for the three people that were listed as killed in her mother's diary. She talks to Barney about this, but the subject of their conversation changes to the fact that Carol seems to be missing.

Later, Linda inspects the corpse of Mr. Collins, and notices bruises on his neck, despite Barton saying his death was caused by a heart-attack. She tells Barton and Connie to get away from her and flees to the nearby city council meeting to get Barney. Linda and Barney go back to the nursing home, and she convinces him to go investigate. While he is gone, Linda finds Carol's mutilated body near a fountain. She goes to get Barney, but finds him murdered. She flees up to Lance's room as someone chases her up the stairs. She gets him to safety through the window before hiding in Mrs. Ryan's room.

Mrs. Ryan removes her hair (a wig) and reveals that she is actually her aunt Rita, and that she was paying Barton and Connie off (to label the deaths naturally caused) to cause the intimation that the nursing home was haunted by her (Rita's) spirit to get revenge on Mrs. Stevens for putting her in the nursing home. She plans to frame Linda for the crimes, since her birth was the reason for all of this. She also reveals that Kelvin is a hired thug. She unlocks the door and Kelvin attacks Linda. After knocking him unconscious, she locks herself in Rita/Mrs. Ryan's bathroom, where she finds Connie and Doctor Barton dead in the bathtub while Rita is laughing hysterically outside the door.

Linda stabs Rita in the eye with a nearby screwdriver, killing her. Linda drives away from the nursing home to a nearby diner with her friend, a young boy named Nico. Linda enters a state of emotional shock and begins making a sugar-cube pyramid in a somewhat delusional manner. Kelvin then crashes a car through the diner, but is shot and killed by Linda. Linda and Nico drive away to the police station as the sun rises and the diner explodes behind them.

Victims

 * 1) Mr. Holdin - Drowned in a bathtub
 * 2) Freeda Cartwright - Drowned in a bathtub
 * 3) Mr. Carmody - Drowned in a bathtub
 * 4) Mrs. Stevens - Killed in an unknown way
 * 5) Mr. Collins - Choked
 * 6) Carol - Throat slit
 * 7) Barney - Stabbed in head
 * 8) Connie - Stabbed and bled to death in bathtub
 * 9) Doctor Barton - Stabbed and bled to death in bathtub