I rented this movie last night mainly based on all of the 9 and 10-star reviews on IMDb. Seriously guys, I'm starting to lose faith in the movie-reviewing public! The positive reviews all use the same clichés: (a) it's aged really well, (b) the acting is great, (c) the scenes with the girl in the mirror are really creepy, even by today's standards.
Umm... no. (a) It hasn't aged well. It looks awful, the special effects are below par even for it's time considering it's Disney (it was the year after Star Wars and Jaws...), the plot is very sparse and very linear. (b) The acting is wooden at beast. The supporting cast are awful, David McCallum is underused, Bette Davis looks bored, and she was right: Lynn-Holly Johnson *is* a lousy actress. (c) The scenes with the girl in the mirror are tame - it's an ordinary girl, looking all 'fuzzy' and 'ethereal'. If the people who think this is frightening ever sit down to watch Ringu or the Woman in Black, they'll probably die of fright.
But the most dire thing about this movie is the plot and its conclusion. It starts out a bit like Poltergeist or Amityville, but then becomes so repetitive and simplistic that it's just boring. In those movies, you have one parent who's a sceptic, one who's worried about the kids, and the kids themselves who're possessed. In this feature, one parent is never present, and one is completely oblivious to the danger her kids are in until she sees the possession for herself, at which point she does an immediate u-turn and tries to get outta dodge. No tension or character development whatsoever.
There is no real logic as to how our heroine, Jan, actually works out that the hauntings aren't caused by a ghost, but by an interdimensional being. Then there's no logic as to why she messes up trying to send said being home - by putting herself in the same position as the victim all those years ago, then surely she's destined for the same fate? Sure enough, she is - she's *that* stupid.
The saving graces of this film are that it's short, and the musical score is good. Unless you're desperate to relive the dubious side of 80s cinema, however, I'd give this one a miss.
Umm... no. (a) It hasn't aged well. It looks awful, the special effects are below par even for it's time considering it's Disney (it was the year after Star Wars and Jaws...), the plot is very sparse and very linear. (b) The acting is wooden at beast. The supporting cast are awful, David McCallum is underused, Bette Davis looks bored, and she was right: Lynn-Holly Johnson *is* a lousy actress. (c) The scenes with the girl in the mirror are tame - it's an ordinary girl, looking all 'fuzzy' and 'ethereal'. If the people who think this is frightening ever sit down to watch Ringu or the Woman in Black, they'll probably die of fright.
But the most dire thing about this movie is the plot and its conclusion. It starts out a bit like Poltergeist or Amityville, but then becomes so repetitive and simplistic that it's just boring. In those movies, you have one parent who's a sceptic, one who's worried about the kids, and the kids themselves who're possessed. In this feature, one parent is never present, and one is completely oblivious to the danger her kids are in until she sees the possession for herself, at which point she does an immediate u-turn and tries to get outta dodge. No tension or character development whatsoever.
There is no real logic as to how our heroine, Jan, actually works out that the hauntings aren't caused by a ghost, but by an interdimensional being. Then there's no logic as to why she messes up trying to send said being home - by putting herself in the same position as the victim all those years ago, then surely she's destined for the same fate? Sure enough, she is - she's *that* stupid.
The saving graces of this film are that it's short, and the musical score is good. Unless you're desperate to relive the dubious side of 80s cinema, however, I'd give this one a miss.