Audrey Rose (1977)
The first time we laid eyes on this 'possessed child' movie, it made a minimal impression on us.
We'd already recognized it for what it was.....just another attempt to catch the hefty box office cash generated by that genre that seized the public's imagination throughout the late 60's and into the 1970's....the 'creepy/scary child' trope. (1968's 'Rosemary's Baby', 1973's "The Exorcist", 1976's 'The Omen' and 'The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane'....)
Coming back to 'Audrey Rose' all these years later, the film left us beyond appalled on multiple levels.....and not just from the abysmal, embarrassing acting, sluggish pace and shameless quasi-religious preaching.
What struck us most was the utter cruelty, stupidity and manipulative phony Hollywood piety of its finale and epilogue. We managed to contain ourselves and not scream out, "Oh give me a ****in' break, will ya??!!"
Author Frank de Felitta scripted the film from his best selling novel about Ivy, an 11 year old girl inhabited by the tortured, reincarnated soul of another little girl, Audrey Rose. It seems Ivy was born minutes after Audrey perished horribly in a traffic accident.
So now Audrey's reliving her demise in Ivy's nightmares, much to the distress of Ivy's well-to-do New York Upper West side parents Janice and Bill Templeton (Marsha Mason, John Beck). Even worse, Audrey Rose's father Elliot Hoover (a young Anthony Hopkins) has taken to stalking Ivy and her family, convinced his late daughter's agonized soul still resides in Ivy.
Bill's exasperation and Janice's hysteria reaches a breaking point as Elliot inserts himself into their lives as the only one who can calm and cuddle Ivy when she's in the grip of Audrey Rose burning to death inside the crashed car only her father was able to escape.
(Spoiler Alert Warning! In order to continue to discuss our rationale for despising this movie, we're going to have to discuss its climax, so we give all our cherished BQ visitors fair warning......okay, here we go......)
Elliot's put on trial for kidnapping Ivy, which leads to Ivy subjected to an endless laborious hypnotism treatment to prove to a jury whether Audrey's really stuck somewhere in Ivy's psyche. The experimental treatment gone awry releases Audrey's soul, but leaves Ivy dead.
But unbelievably, the film begs us to feel good about this turn of events that lets Audrey Rose's bedeviled soul wander in the hereafter until she parks herself in some other poor kid. Meanwhile, Janice gives Elliot permission to scatter Ivy's ashes in India, which the film depicts as a benevolent shrine to the glories of reincarnation. Audiences were supposed to leave the theater with the comforting thought that Ivy too will find renewed existence when she floats into a new live body.
And celebrated director Robert Wise ("The Sound of Music", "West Side Story", "The Haunting" goes all in here to preach the reincarnated gospel to all us lowly popcorn gobblers.....
Did he really believe it? Or was he just praying that the pseudo upbeat ending would make us forget we were watching just another 'creepy kid' horror movie?
We're not supposed to give a moment's thought to the plight of Ivy, an innocent child invaded by a restless soul and left dead as a result.....as long as we know her ashes will drift past the Taj Mahal or Mumbai or wherever to land in a fresh body. Yeah....right.
The filmmaking skill on display never crawls above rock bottom. Our sympathies go out to the cast, most of whom end up deeply humiliated. John Beck, a mediocre talent at best, is left to sputter and fume. Marsha Mason spends the entirety of the film weeping and hand-wringing. Child actress Susan Swift, forced into continuous screaming fits, doesn't have anywhere near the range the role required. Only Hopkins escapes with his dignity intact by maintaining a soft spoken, low-key demeanor.
Rotten to its very core and infuriating in its sanctimonious tragic wind-up, 'Audrey Rose' wins our rarely awarded AFH honor.....an Abomination From Hell. Let it rest in movie hell forevermore.
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