Audrey Rose

Year of release : 1977

Run time : 1h53m

Genre : Psychological Horror / Drama

Cast : Anthony Hopkins

The movie is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by Frank De Fellitta, who also wrote the screenplay and co- produced it.

 

The movie opens with a car crash which took place in Pennsylvania.

New York, 1976. A happy family of three is having fun in the park. They seem to be followed by a man with a beard.

One rainy day, the mother, Janice, sees the man while she’s waiting for her 10 year old daughter,Ivy, go get out of school. When she gets home she looks out the window, afraid he followed them. When her husband comes home, she’s afraid it might be the man.

That very same night, they have guests, and their daughter has a night terror. Janice manages to wake her up, and when asked about what she dreamt that she said was so awful, the little girl can’t remember.

The father, Bill, notices the man too, on the bus, in the elevator, in front of Ivy’s school. He goes to the police, but they tell him unless the man assaulted him, they can’t help him.

Because Ivy wasn’t in school the next day, the man calls to ask about her health.

Later that day, Ivy finds a gift which she thinks is from her father, but he tells her mother he didn’t buy it, so they realize it was from the man who’s stalking them.

The next day, Janice receives a letter from the man stalking them with his credentials.

 

The next time she goes to take Ivy from school, Janice is late, and thinks she sees Ivy running away from her. The man approaches her telling her Ivy is safe, he took her home. He tells her he wants to talk to them, and that he’ll call that evening.

In the evening he asks them to meet at 9:30 PM at a restaurant.

At the restaurant, the man presents himself as Elliot Hoover, and tells them 11 years prior he had a family, a wife and a daughter, Audrey Rose. Audrey Rose was 5 years old when she died with her mother in the car accident we saw at the beginning. A year after their death, Elliot saw a clairvoyant who told him specific things about his childhood, that his wife was at peace but that his daughter is alive in New York. A few months later he saw another clairvoyant, who told him again, that Audrey Rose was alive in New York and that she lived in an apartment with paintings on the ceiling, and that her bedroom had yellow and white curtains with matching canopy bed, with a giant panda bear next to her bed, which as he says this, we see in Ivy’s room.

The two are called about Ivy, and they leave asking Elliot to never bother them again.

Ivy has been having night terrors since she turned five years old. She keeps on calling for her “daddy”. So far, when she has nightmares they can wake her up.

At home the couple speak about Elliot. Janice believes him, Bill doesn’t.

The next day the father, Bill Templeton, talks to his lawyer who tells him to talk to the man, and gives him questions to memorize to ask him.

When he enters their home, Elliot is shocked at the accuracy of the descriptions the clairvoyants gave him about the Templeton home.

Elliot tells them he lived in India for a while, where he learnt about reincarnation. He tells them Audrey Rose died on October 3d 1965, to which Bill replies that’s Ivy’s birthday. Elliot tells them Audrey Rose died at 8:20 AM, while Janice Templeton says Ivy was born at 8:22 AM.

While they talk, Ivy sleepwalks and starts screaming. She runs to the bedroom window, screaming for “daddy”, unable to wake up. She stops after Elliot calls her Audrey Rose a few times, and goes into his arms, falling back asleep. Instead of thanking him, Bill punches him.

Janice understood her daughter’s night terrors are about the accident. Not just that, when Ivy banged on the window, which was cold, she burnt her hands. Bill thinks she touched the radiator. Bill doesn’t believe in life after death.

Although Janice believes Elliot, she is afraid to talk to him, so she leaves the phone off the hook.

When he calls she tells their door man to tell him they are not home. But Ivy has another night terror, and she destroys everything around her trying to get to the window, and even Janice falls down the staircase running after her, wounding herself. When Elliot calls again, she tells their door man to send him up. Elliot calms Ivy again by calling her Audrey Rose, telling her it’s “daddy”.

Janice is so scared she starts praying.

Elliot tells her Ivy dreams about the moment of her death in the previous life when she was Audrey, which could cause her harm even k1lling her, if she can’t wake up, thinking it’s real. He is asking her to let him be part of Ivy’s life so that when she has night terrors he could intervene and help her get over the nightmares.

Bill sees him leave their apartment, and is not pleased. He thinks he’s insane and a magician. He goes as far as to call Janice crazy too, for what is happening to their daughter that he can’t see.

When their daughter has another night terror, Elliot comes, but Bill doesn’t let him in, so they fight, and Elliot gets in. He takes Ivy with him to his downstairs apartment, managing to calm her down.

Because he took Ivy, being considered kidnapping, he is taken by the police, and put to trial.

I enjoyed the movie. I liked the places where they filmed, and I loved the interior design and outside architecture of the Templeton house. Everything used to be so beautiful back then.

A scene might be missing, because from a scene in which the parents talk at a restaurant we are in the street, where the mother is on the ground, the police keeping 2 men from fighting, but we don’t know what happened.

I liked the mother who didn’t know how to help her child. I also liked Elliot who tried to help Ivy thinking her his own daughter. I didn’t like Bill who didn’t believe in anything. Everybody was crazy but him. SPOILERS He’s the reason Ivy died. If it wasn’t for his stubbornness, and allowed Elliot to help them, they could have helped the little girl. Instead, he let them hypnotize her, regressing her into the moment of her death, trapping her there, calling her Ivy-to wake up- when she was Audrey Rose! END OF SPOILERS

SPOILERS I didn’t like the ending, and the fact it ended with a quote which is supposed to be hopeful but isn’t for she could end up having the same nightmares in the next life, which probably started right away. Also, it’s not hopeful at all to know we reincarnate right after we die! It means there’s no rest. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the reincarnation idea, which might be true, as there are many accounts of kids remembering places and people from previous lives (they knew exactly who they were, what they did for a living, who their family was, and where they lived). I don’t want to come back and do it all over again, to learn everything all over again, how to walk, read, write, to go to school, all the childhood diseases, not to mention the place one might reincarnate, in poverty, a 3d world country, a country at war…this is torture.END OF SPOILERS

The acting was good. I particularly liked Marsha Mason, who played the mother. She deserved the Oscar for this performance.

The soundtrack was good.

The movie has a 5.8 score on IMDB, and a 57% tomato meter against a 43 popcorn meter on Rotten Tomatoes.

You can watch the full movie for free on the Ok.Ru platform.

Rating : Worth a watch !