Watch Audrey Rose For Free

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

As Good As It Gets

A Masterpiece!

Blistering performances.

I was watching this film a week ago, without knowing this has Hare Rama Hare Rama stuffs in it. That day, Ram Rahim Story came out in India. He was sentenced to imprisonment.Now, I don't want to sound like Hindu-phobic or something, but the film was boring. There were better re-incarnation films made in Bollywood. Comparin' to them, this was a ridiculous attempt at it.The film cuda been a hell lot good. It just wasn't.The ending simply fall flat. When you make a story, you end it good, or you just don't know how to end it. With that meaningless hypnosis scene, it ended in nothing.Skip it. There are better movies waiting' there.

Remember, this was 1977, a good ten years after the Beatles had invited us to consider all things eastern spiritual (Hare Krishna anyone?). This movie is premised upon the belief that reincarnation not only happens, but that people can recognize others from prior lives and those reincarnated can have memories of their previous lives. Both are dubious claims, but hey, it's a movie.What I kept waiting for was for anyone to give a counter argument against reincarnation. But not only does this not happen, it is not even raised as a possibility! And these parents have their daughter is a Roman Catholic school! Excuse me, can anyone say Incarnation, as opposed to re-incarnation??? The "examination" of reincarnation is so shallow as to be laughable, and Marsha Mason's instant acceptance of it (on the stand!) is sadly preposterous. What kind of psychic vibes Anthony Hopkins got that he would "recognize" a two-year old as his two-years deceased daughter is never explained, but could have been a poignant example of grief and displacement, if the movie took another direction. I don't know how anyone can consider this film to be "intelligent" when there is absolutely no opposing viewpoint (except that Audrey Rose is Ivy). And for those who believe in reincarnation: what did Ivy do to deserve the "karma" of dying on the hypnosis table?

John Beck & Marsha Mason play Bill & Janice Templeton, a happily married New York couple with a young daughter named Ivy, who becomes the center of attention after she is repeatedly followed by a mysterious man, who eventually makes contact, and introduces himself as Elliot Hoover(played by Anthony Hopkins) who had lost his own daughter Audrey Rose 11 years ago in a car accident, and who is convinced that Ivy is his daughter Audrey reincarnated. The Templeton's are sympathetic for his loss, but scoff at reincarnation. However, when Ivy starts having horrible nightmares, Hoover gets directly involved and takes Ivy/Audrey out of their apartment, which prompts his arrest, and a trial involving the validity of reincarnation, which results in Ivy undergoing hypnosis, with unexpected results...Anthony Hopkins is excellent, and though director Robert Wise imbues the film with some atmosphere, it is unfortunately plodding and overlong, though does retain some interest in the premise, its conclusion is not very satisfying, almost becoming ridiculous.

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