Audrey Rose

Anthony Hopkins once had a full head of non-grey hair. That's the single most unrealistic thing about this movie for me. I think this is may be the only film prior to Silence of the Lambs that I've seen him in, so a 1970s Anthony Hopkins was quite a shock.

This is a movie that's subtle in it's horror. It's a film that deals with the fear of uncertainty, and the terror of human existence. Elliot Hoover (Hopkins) believes that his late daughter, Audrey Rose (not depicted, as far as I can tell), has been reincarnated as Ivy Templeton (Susan Swift), the daughter of Bill and Janice Templeton (John Beck and Marsha Mason). Obviously, this does not make for a happy situation.

To be more specific, Hoover's daughter died roughly a decade prior to the events of the movie, in a car crash where she was burned alive. Hoover became desperate for spiritual comfort, and came to believe in reincarnation. A medium described her spirit's current location to him, and Hoover was able to trace the location to the Templeton's apartment complex, and specifically to Ivy who was born on the same day as Audrey Rose's death. Eventually, he moves into an apartment in their building.

During this period, Ivy begins to experience intense nightmares and panic attacks. This becomes the driving conflict of the film. Hoover seems to be able to comfort Ivy by addressing her as Audrey Rose, something that deeply disturbs the Templetons, for obvious reasons. Janice seems willing to accept his assistance in dealing with their daughter, however, as long as it helps Ivy. Bill, on the other hand, sees him purely as an intruder in their family affairs.

Eventually, Hoover takes Ivy to his apartment to let her sleep, and refuses to open the door for her parents. Bill has him charged with kidnapping. This section of the movie confuses me deeply. Hoover's lawyer defends him by trying to convince the jury that Ivy is the reincarnation of Audrey Rose.. I'm unaware of any legal precedent that gives people custody of the reincarnations of their children, so it seems like an utterly moot point in a kidnapping trial.

It's notable that the movie doesn't attempt to make Hoover out to be the completely selfless, persecuted mystic that you'd typically expect in this story. He loves his daughter, yes, but he's also clearly prepared to manipulate the situation to get what he wants. I don't doubt for a second that if he could find a way to get full custody of Ivy he would do so without a second thought for her parents. He even tells his lawyer to put Janice on the stand, because he knows that she'll break down and turn on her husband.

Bill makes a good contrast to Hoover. He believes, not unreasonably, that Hoover is a master of suggestion, and that their daughter's condition is being made worse by his reinforcement. He doesn't come across as unreasonable, but he likewise doesn't seem to have any better solutions as Ivy's behavior becomes increasingly uncontrollable, and she begins making attempts to harm herself.

The ending of the movie seems too clean and simple for this story. Ivy dies in a regression experiment requested by her father that was, somehow, intended to “prove” she wasn't a reincarnation of Audrey Rose. The parents agree to let Hoover take her ashes to India, something I find rather baffling since Hoover's spiritual travels to India came after his daughter died, and I don't believe Audrey Rose went there in either of her incarnations. Apparently India is just where the body of reincarnated little girls are supposed to go.

This isn't a terrible movie, but it isn't exactly a classic either. I know it's adapted from a novel, so I suspect the plot made more sense in that context. As it is, it's a strong character piece, that makes little sense as a legal drama, and has little of value to say spiritually.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #18 The Haunting

This movie should really be somewhere in the top ten. It’s a film about not only what you don’t see, but what you legitimately don’t know. It’s a movie in which the mentally ill protagonist is probably more reliable than any other character in the film. I personally assume that there’s a supernatural element in the movie, but where it begins and where it ends is debatable, because I don’t think there’s a single event in this film for which a rational explanation couldn’t be provided.

The story is told primarily through the eyes of a girl named Eleanor, or Nell for short (Julie Harris). While never stated overtly, it’s strongly implied that Nell suffers from some form of mental illness that causes her family to view her as entirely dependent. However, before her mother died, Nell had spent the last ten years caring for her. And now she blames herself for her mother's death.

Nell is invited by Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson) to stay overnight at a “haunted” mansion called Hill House, and she jumps at the chance to escape her controlling sister and brother-in-law; determined to never return. How she intends to accomplish this with whatever she can earn from staying overnight in this house is not elaborated upon, and I think it’s likely a sign of her mental state that she believes such an escape can be so easily achieved.

Markway invited several people with paranormal experiences to the house as an experiment to demonstrate the existence of the supernatural by stirring it up with their presence. Unfortunately for the experiment, only two of them show up. Nell (who may have encountered a poltergeist as a child), and a supposedly psychic woman named Theo (Claire Bloom). The cast is then rounded off by Luke (Russ Tamblyn), a young man who stands to inherit the house, and has been charged by his family’s Matriarch to oversee the experiment.

The fact that the house may be haunted and that Nell is clearly unwell already provide a great deal of ambiguity as to what’s going on. Anything that we learn exclusively from her perspective may be distorted. However, the rest of the cast are all so dubious in their motives that there’s a layer to it beyond this. Each and every member of the experiment has a motivation to deceive the others, and Nell is clearly an easy target for such trickery.

Dr. Markway naturally wants to make sure his “experiment” is a success. However, he never comes across as particularly scientific or rigorous, and you could interpret him either as a deluded fanatic or an outright conman looking to become famous. In fact, even if we give him the benefit of the doubt, he seems like nothing more than a superstitious idiot who got in over his head when he stumbled into a real haunting.

Theo comes across as quite shady herself. She could be a psychic, or a card shark who’s very skilled at cold reading. There are also many hints that she’s sexually attracted to Nell, but she’s manipulative enough that you could just as easily reverse the interpretation and say that Nell is a Lesbian with whom she’s playing mind games. She makes a point of “Reading” Nell’s mind on a number of occasions, but Nell always tends to wear her thoughts on her sleeves anyway

Luke is a rich, spoiled jerk who doesn’t take anything about the experiment seriously. You could certainly see him setting up some of the manifestations of the supernatural as pranks, simply to amuse himself. And just as with Theo, Luke would likely see Nell as the obvious target.

With these factors coming together, we’re left with a troubled woman, surrounded by a pack of wolves, desperate to get away from her family and possibly under siege by spirits. But in spite of this, she begins to fall in love with the house because of the escape it represents.

The house itself is just as ambiguous. On the one hand, we’re told that it was built with bizarre angles to be intentionally disorienting. On the other, there have been a number of strange deaths in the house... or perhaps it’s just natural that a house standing for 90 years would have seen some of its residents meet their end. We’re given the deaths in an eerie flashback. But when you say “two deaths by accident, an old woman died because her nurse was negligent, and a suicide,” it doesn’t sound all that impressive to merit such fear; especially since the first two and the last two were at least half a century apart. Then again, it’s possible that the movie is creating an irrational fear within us, just as the house creates an irrational fear in the characters.

This isn’t a movie that gives you easy answers. All you know is that when people are scared, or when they believe in something, real or not, it can pose a very real threat. Nell’s desperation to stay in the house eventually drives her to her death... or the house just kills her. But in the end, the result is still the same. She prefers death over returning to her life, and so she joins the house.

If you haven’t seen this movie, watch it. Turn off the lights, grab a hand to hold, and it’s perfect for any movie night.