IMDb plot summary: When a family moves to a country home, the young girls experience strange happenings that have a link to an occult event years past.
Directed by John Hough. Starring Lynn-Holly Johnson, Kyle Richards, Benedict Taylor, and Bette Davis.
I feel like this might be one I had to see growing up to really appreciate it. As an adult, I responded to it very much the way I did to ParaNorman -- I thought the concept of a horror movie for kids was fun, but the story had been told much better many times before.
The story's a pretty typical ghost story -- it's not bad, but it doesn't necessarily stand out in the genre. What DOES stand out, unfortunately, is the acting, particularly of the two girls at the center of the story. Both of them are pretty awful, with the older one reaching a point about halfway through where every emotion is conveyed through awkward yelling, even if the person she's talking to is standing just a couple feet away. As a kid, it would have been easier for me to overlook that, but watching it now, I winced a little every time she opened her mouth.
This is exactly what it promises to me: a ghost story for kids. And if I was a kid (and was not easily scared), I'd probably like it a lot. As an adult, it's much less compelling.
2 stars.
Flickchart: #1428 out of 2087, below The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and above No Reservations.
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