Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Anscules The only thing worthwhile about this embarrassment is the opening 20 seconds or so. Very moody, intriguing, even brave. Everything after that is hopeless. Clearly aping The Exorcist (Marsha Mason isn't fit to drink from Ellen Burstyn's shoe), the film ends up being a weird hash of TV movie and student film... even Marsha Mason bashed it one year after it came out (!). Really, Wise must've been directing this from the catering truck or something. A few things that had me almost hating this ting from the opening credits (none are spoilers). Everyone is smiling so hard their faces will break, even when doing something no real person would smile during.... like being alone in a dark room. Ear to ear smile in a home dark room looking at the 10000000th shot of your kid? No. When the girl is handed a single balloon by her dad in the park she practically explodes with glee, running around like a person with some sort of a problem. All of this serves to fulfill a dreadful movie cliche: all of these people are soon to be miserable so let's see the counterpoint. Look how far they've fallen. It's on the level of junior high emotional appeal...Then, mom waits outside her daughter's school door. The instant the bell rings - in fact I believe the ringing overlaps this - kids begin pouring out of the doors. That's not how it works. Kids don't line up against the door looking at their parents through the glass waiting for a bell that allows them to open the door. That's the kind of movie this is.Finally, the worst part. Cinematography. Some of the ugliest, phoniest garbage I have ever seen outside of 1970s network tv shows. Any sequence in the apartment is utterly hideous, with light glaring off actors' cheeks and coming from all directions. Nobody's house interior ever looked like this. Oh. I spent a good stretch of the film with the subtitles on and sound muted because the girl's performance has got to be one of the most annoying things I've ever heard. See this and tell me you aren't moved into any other emotion than annoyance at all the whining. Flabbergastingly awful. I only wrote this review bec so many seem to be lukewarm about it.

mercurysbest Not a patch on the novel I wish they'd do remake as the book is so in depth, and the next book for the love of Audrey rose is very readable too please give this a chance it's very dated but look beyond the acting and see the emotional turmoil they were going through in the story.

BA_Harrison Elliot Hoover (Anthony Hopkins) believes that 11-year-old schoolgirl Ivy Templeton (Susan Swift) is the reincarnation of his daughter, who was burnt alive in a car wreck. Is he a nutter? Ivy's parents (Marsha Mason and John Beck) think so… at first.IMDb categorises Audrey Rose as horror, and the film is listed in my trusty Aurum Encyclopedia of Horror, but it's not in the least bit scary, shocking, or disturbing: the only freaky thing about the whole film is the titular character's 'Crazy Frog' expression, all bug eyes and manic grin. Rather than a sense of fear, all I felt was irritation every time the girl cried, whimpered or screamed, or gave the camera one of her unconvincing smiles or vacant looks of bewilderment.As if Swift's performance wasn't grating enough, the rest of the cast seem to do their utmost to compete: John Beck's character is a total asshole, Mason's histrionics are hard to bear, and Anthony Hopkins adds to the overall annoyance with his repetitious calling of his little girl's name in an attempt to soothe her. Audrey Rose! Audrey Rose! Audrey F**ing Rose! Aaaaarrrggggh! Put a sock in it, Hopkins!The final straws that broke this camel's back were the dull 'made-for-TV movie-of-the-week' direction and the choppy editing, the film jumping awkwardly from one scene to another. All told, this is a weak effort, horror or not!

tomgillespie2002 The 1970's saw the spiritual aspects of the late-'60's counter-culture reduced to commodity. Bookshops and alternative stores became filled with "New Age" paraphernalia and self-help guru's. Western culture was looking for a replacement for organised religion, but what also came with this commercial business which extrapolated ideas from philosophy, religion and even transcendental drug cultures, was the deconstruction of ancient Eastern ideologies. Chinese and Indian religious traditions were ransacked and certain ideas were extracted for consumer consumption in book-of-the-week, escapist fad. It is no mistake that Hollywood cinema, along with the literary industries, collided with supernatural tales. The heavy emphasis on the search for a modern spirituality, along with a deep-seated religious guilt, lead to some of horror cinema's great narratives (The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976)), and Audrey Rose took similar root.Audrey Rose was adapted from screenwriter Frank De Fellita's own novel, and uses these cultural trends, along with the omnipresent use of an adolescent at the centre, and the concept of reincarnation as the basis for familial horror. The middle class New York Templeton family are approached by Elliot Hoover (Anthony Hopkins), who's wife and daughter had died in a car crash several years earlier. He then claims that their daughter, Ivy (Susan Swift), is the reincarnation of his daughter Audrey Rose. Ivy's night terrors increase in intensity, something that Hoover states is his daughter crying to get out off a burning car. As Hoover begins to get access to Ivy, even her mother Janice (Marsha Mason) begins to believe when he calms Ivy down by calling her Audrey.Hopkins' performance is terrifically balanced, portraying the character with both a sinister quality and the intensity of the grieving father, believing that he is in the presence of his daughters soul. However, the first half of the film is the better experience here, beginning with the mystery of Hoover, as he seems to stalk the family. The second half is a bit of a drag, falling into repetition and over-the-top pop-psychology. Directed by seasoned director Robert Wise, who had dealt with the supernatural in the excellent The Haunting (1963), it does have some interesting scenes, but as a whole it lacks the intensity required for the story. Due to the central theme of the alteration of the child, like so many films of the time, it fears youth autonomy, but with the inclusion of the trend, it does often create inferior visual imitation.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com