Customer Reviews

Audrey Rose

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

One of Anthony Hopkins first major films where he plays the grief stricken father of a child who was tragically killed in a car accident, burnt to death before she could be rescued. This is a slow moving film that follows Hopkins as he tries to convince Marsha Mason that her daughter Ivy is in fact the reincarnation of his child Audrey Rose. Despite some terrible reviews from critics, this is a chilling little film that tries to look at the concept of reincarnation intelligently whilst at same time maintaining its momentum as a horror story. There are some great moments such as the window episode when Ivy/Audrey Rose relives her attempt to get out of the burning car. I kept hearing "HOT HOT HOT" for days after watching the film, so all credit to then newcomer Susan Swift who played the reincarnated child Audrey Rose/Ivy. Hopkins and Mason are convincing as the respective parents of Audrey Rose/Ivy and though the film isn't a masterpiece of direction and cinematography it is still is a very good film. The final scene where Ivy/Audrey Rose is regressed back to her "first" death is both poignant and heart wrenching. Not bad for a film made in 1977 and certainly better than many of its critics have made out.

Audrey Rose. Who or what is Audrey Rose? Is it a demon? Is it a ghost? No. Audrey Rose a little girl. A little girl who died a tragic death and maybe living in another body of another girl......

Meet the Templetons. Janice and Bill. They live in a high-class New York apartment building with their 11-year-old daughter, Ivy. Suddenly, Ivy's personality has changed. She's not acting 11. But acting like a 5 year old. And she's been having a sleepwalking problem too. She'll get up (though, obviously sleeping) and run around her room screaming "Mommydaddymommydaddyhot!hot!hot!" and has even scorched her hands on some invisible hot fire.

Enter Elliot Hoover. A middle aged mysterious man who follows Janice and Ivy home from school every day. But he stays far behind them. Every day, Janice worries that the mysterious man is going to attack her.

One day, Elliot finally gets the chance to tell Janice and Bill something that has been bothering him. He believes that their daughter Ivy is a reincarnation of his dead child, Audrey Rose. You see, she was in the car that his wife was driving when it skidded off the road and into a ditch below where it caught on fire.He tells them that he moved into town around around the same time that Ivy has had her night fits. Suddenly, from the upstairs of their apartment, Ivy has another fit, screaming "Mommydaddymommydaddyhot!hot!hot!" The Templeton's are horrified to discover that the only way to calm her down is for Hoover to say "Audrey! Audrey Rose! It's daddy! It's daddy!" until she falls asleep peacefully. The Templeton's tell Hoover not to return to their apartment and to leave them alone.

After countless attemps to contact the Templeton's, Elliot kidnaps Ivy and is arrested. During a court battle, Ivy is taken away from her regular school and is brought to a Catholic Elementary where there will be no reports covering the possible "reincarnated girl". During that time, Ivy is upset because all the girls tease her after sneeking in a newspaper with Ivy on the front. During a special holiday event at the school, the children build a gigantic snowman and dance around it singing "Old man winter go away! Don't come back till Christmas day" Ivy is forced by Audrey Rose to walk into the fire and kill herself, but is stopped by a nun. Meanwhile, the trial is still going on and a witness who was in the car accident (the trial is now about reincarnation and if Elliot was right) said the last words she heard Audrey Rose say was "Mommydaddymommydaddyhot!hot!hot!".

Ivy is taken out of the school and Janice believes that Ivy is really Audrey Rose from the second she was born. Bill doesn't. Elliot is found "Innocent" and Janice agrees to Elliot's decision to put her under hypnosis to see what she can remember. It is done live on tv. Suddenly, Janice is startled when they go back in Ivy's memory to discover Audrey Rose yelling "Hot!Hot!Hot!Hot!Hot!Hot!Hot!Hot!Hot!" constantly. They try to take her off the hypnosis quickly, because if she doesn't snap out of it soon: she'll die.

RECCOMENDED TO FANS OF:
The Exorcist (1973)
The Omen (1976)
Rosemary's Baby (1968)

CAST

Marsha Mason......Janice Templeton
John Beck.............Bill Templeton
Anthony Hopkins..Elliot Hoover
Susan Swift..........Ivy Templeton

THE MOVIE 3/4

THE PICTURE QUALITY: 6/10: Some sparkles. It's presented in a matted 1.85:1 widescreen transfer.

THE AUDIO QUALITY: 6/10: Mono soundtrack. There is Spanish and French language tracks, both mono as well. Dolby Digital.

THE SPECIAL FEATURE: A teaser trailer. Too bad it wasn't a full trailer however, it uses only a few seconds of scenes from the movie. Runs about 19 seconds long.

SUBTITLES: French and Spanish.

The Templeton family has a shadow. Seems like every time Bill (John Beck) or Janice (Marsha Mason) turn around, they see a bearded man following them. Finally Elliott Hoover (Hopkins) arranges a meeting with them.

It seems he believes their daughter, Ivy (Susan Swift) is the reincarnation of his own child, Audrey Rose. Soon enough, Ivy's psychic symptoms bear this out. She's having dreams of events that never happened--and burns are appearing on her hands.

You see, Audrey Rose Hoover was trapped in a wrecked car that caught fire and couldn't free herself.

The good points of this film is the acting by Hopkins and Swift. Anthony Hopkins is a somber, sad man who is desperately trying to help his own child's soul. Swift does an amazing portrayal of a young girl haunted by a past she cannot remember. I would not call the sound and video of this DVD a 'loving rendition'. Both are mediocre to say the least.

If you enjoy 60's and 70's horror like, "The Exorcist," "Rosemary's Baby," "The Bad Seed", "The Omen," "Reincarnation of Peter Proud," you are going to enjoy this film. I hope at some point, the producers at United Artists will do a better job of digitizing the video and audio for DVD.

One of the best films of the late 1970's. A spine-tingling tale about an eleven-year-old girl who has nightmares about a former existence when she died in a car fire .Susan Swift gives a touching performance as Ivy Templeton. Sir Anthony Hopkins , Marsha Mason and John Beck also star in this bittersweet and horrifying film based on Frank De Felita's best-selling novel.Watch this one with the lights out.If you're skeptical about reincarnation it might just make a believer out of you yet.
If you like this one I also recommend "The Changeling" (1979) staring George C. Scott and Trish Van Deer .

"Audrey Rose" is a creepy occult thriller of reincarnation. It is based on Frank DeFelitta's best-selling novel of the same title. DeFelitta also wrote several other horror novels; one of which, The Entity, also became a box office success.

Marsha Mason and James Beck give wonderful performances as Bill and Janet Templeton; their daughter Ivy (Susan Swift) is tormented by nightmares of a girl, Audrey Rose, who died in a fiery car crash. Movie legend Anthony Hopkins ("Silence of the Lambs" and "Magic") delivers a convincing performance as the mysterious stalker, Elliot Hoover, who insists that Ivy was his daughter Audrey Rose in her previous life (or incarnation).

"Audrey Rose" does bare some similarities to "The Exorcist." Each film has a tormented girl. Regan of "The Exorcist" is possessed by a demon, whereas Ivy is obsessed by the memories of her former incarnation. Instead of being treated by an exorcist, Ivy is treated by a hypnotist.

The viewer feels much sympathy for the tormented Ivy. Susan Swift gives a great performance each time Ivy has a nightmare during which she believes she is trapped inside a burning car. She bangs her fists against windows and turns over furniture. Unfortunately, this particular scene is repeated too many times and loses its shock value.

"Audrey Rose" is a great introductory film for those who are unfamiliar with the Hindu belief of reincarnation. During the courtroom scenes, a holy man explained that reincarnation is the eternal soul traveling from one body to another as it seeks perfection.

The ending was rater tame, predictable and disappointing. Audrey Rose died in flames. The ending should've been more fiery and explosive. Nevertheless, it was sad.

"Audrey Rose" is a must see for those who believe in reincarnation and for fans of occult horror films, especially those made in the seventies. Also recommended is "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud."

A New York couple experience bizarre, stalker-like behavior from an English stranger. While they attempt to bar him from their lives, he slides his way in anyway and tries to convince them that their 11-year-old girl is the reincarnation of his 11-years-departed daughter, Audrey Rose. Written by Brian J. Wright [...]

Janice and Bill Templeton, a happily married couples the parents of well-adjusted preteen Ivy. But there worried about her nightmare every time it get near her birthday, But the family lives turns upside down when a mysterious man keeps follow them around, at first mistaken for a potential child molester, the man introduce himself as Elliot Hoover. He told about the loss of his wife and his five-year-old daughter, Audrey Rose who died from car accident, while his loss of his family he meet two psyches who told him that his daughter is alive again. There don't believe his story and they think he's crazy, but Ivy nightmare grows worse, but this time scream and runs around the room bang her hands at the window, Could Hoover story of reincarnation is true...? Written by Tiff Banks


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Saw this movie years ago and it was the first time seeing Anthony Hopkins and I felt his acting made the movie; it was riveting and I decided, after all the other movies he has done, that I wanted to own one of the earlier pieces of work that he did. Consequently, I chose to purchase the DVD, so that I could watch it when I wanted as it hasn't been on television to the best of my knowledge. So worth seeing and Hopkins was as good then as he is today.

Picture this: A 5 year old girl trapped, helpless, in an overturned and burning automobile. Therein lies the true horror of this film. This movie is positively chilling! A reincarnation storyline that doesn't need elaborate special effects or excessive blood and gore to keep the hairs on the back of your neck tingling. The plot doesn't suffer in the transition from book to big screen, even though it does lose some detail. If you like 70's era occult flicks (like The Reincarnation Of Peter Proud, Magic or The Amityville Horror), then you should like this.

Ugh. What a waste of a perfectly good evening. I was fairly excited about this as I love that whole vibe 70s supernatural thrillers have, I admire [some of] the work of Robert Wise, and this was also one of those movies I had seen once or twice at the age of 13, and it seemed pretty good then. It does NOT hold up.

I watched the trailer before watching the movie, which is essentially the cover of the novel this came from, with a lot of talk about how this is the adaptation of the blockbuster novel... and that's exactly what this movie seemed like: an assured hit, so just make it seem like somewhat of a `prestige' picture, but no need to put a great deal more effort into it. This is also a painfully obvious rip-off of The Exorcist, especially in the appearance of the child, the mother-daughter dynamic, the multitude of `distraught mother' scenes, and the whole tone of urban spookiness it tries [with extreme effort] to appropriate. Perhaps the main reason to watch this movie is to appreciate the effortlessness with which The Exorcist achieves all of these effects, in contrast to what we have here. This movie also really highlighted for my what a great performance Ellen Burstyn gave in that movie, and how genuinely innocent and charming the young Linda Blair could be. Because it ain't here, that's for sure.

Here's the deelio: Marsha and her hunky stud of a husband John Beck [more on him later] have a picture-perfect Manhattan life. But creepy Anthony Hopkins is always hanging around and staring at their daughter, Ivy. Marsha and husband get more and more creeped out, John even goes to the police, but no one ever thinks of just going up to the guy and just asking him what he wants. Anthony Hopkins doesn't exactly pose the greatest physical threat, and during this part we get the first glimmers of what turns out to be one of the major problems of this movie: it's just dragging itself out interminably just to... drag itself out. And I have to say that that pisses me off, and turns me against a movie. Anyway, so the whole first 30 minutes is spent finding excuses to drag out the low-level stalking.

Then the couple meets with Anthony [who shaved his beard to help lose that "I'm a crazed stalker" look he was apparently going for?], and he informs them [in an extremely rambling way] that he believes that their daughter Ivy is the reincarnation of his daughter Audrey Rose. We have to wait quite a while more before he gets around to telling them what he WANTS, which is essentially to have visiting rights. I will say that Anthony turns in a good performance typical of his early career. But, even though Marsha's hunky stud husband mildly voices that he thinks this guy is nuts, the film tries to pretend like Anthony is making a fairly reasonable assertion, even though really the ONLY reasonable thing to think is that THIS GUY IS F***ING NUTS. There's a lot of instances I could mention but honestly I don't care enough to go through them. You could have a VERY interesting movie if the film took the perspective that the guy IS nuts, and he intrudes on this family's life and causes a bunch of problems, but no, what we have is an entirely gullible film that is banking on a 70s audience's leaning toward a belief in reincarnation. That it doesn't adequately consider alternate theories is another alienator from the film.

So anyway, it seems that Ivy is having nightmares--proof positive that she's the reincarnation of another girl, don't you think? At least that's what Marsha is finding herself increasingly believing, which causes John to be frustrated with her, and the predictable and repetitive scenes of marital tension follow. Marsha Mason pulls out all the acting stops in her many Oscar-speech scenes, but she's trying so hard that you're really just sitting there watching a woman act, rather than getting into her character. This reaches its zenith in a scene where she prays to God for forgiveness! Especially when she switches into Latin at the last minute! It's all supposed to be SO HARD-HITTING and it's too lame to manage even that. Let it also be noted that, for me at least, Marsha Mason pretty much sums up a certain kind of 70s banality; that kind of ostentatious "acting" passing as quality. Marsha Mason, ladies and gentlemen, MARSHA MASON.

There follow several repetitive scenes in which Ivy has a nightmare, Anthony calms her down by calling her Audrey Rose, and John gets angry. Then enters a not-so-sub subtext in which Anthony and Marsha unite as the "real parents" of Ivy, and John is shuttled off to the side. This is announced quite unequivocally when Anthony says to Marsha "You and me made this child." This occurs on a night when John had to work late, and places this movie among the spate of movies of the 70s/80s in which the husband is vilified for working [though we hear numerous comments about how lovely the family's Central Park West apartment is], and not "being there" for the family. Marsha accusingly says to John "he was here and you weren't!" Yes, how DARE you work to keep us in this nice apartment, and so I can pursue my amateur photography hobby! You callow cad! Typically [though it isn't pursued in this movie] any comments of the "well, who do you think puts this roof over your head?" variety are met with a rejoinder of how the wife would be perfectly happy to live in a henhouse, we're poor but we've got love, etc. Anyway, the second half of the movie is all about Marsha shutting her husband out, and him fighting to reclaim his stake in his family.

Which brings us to the husband. He is played by John Beck, who sounded familiar, and I see that he was the 70s HUNK who played James Caan's sexy sexy sexy best friend in Rollerball. He, with his fluffy hair, mustache and blue eyes, is a classic 70s hunk in the Sam Elliott in Lifeguard mold. This movie also takes place during a time period when men always wore suits to work, and looked GREAT in the process. There was a LOT of fast-forwarding as I watched this movie, but I have to say there would have been a great deal more if I didn't have the alluring John to look at. Hey sweetie, if Marsha doesn't appreciate her nice digs, I'd be more than happy to take her place, and I can speculate with confidence that I give much better head.

Anyway, it all drags toward a dull climax in which they decide to "prove" whether or not Ivy is really the reincarnation of Audrey Rose by hypnotizing her. And the viewer asks "well, how is this going to prove ANYTHING?" but this, as per usual, is not addressed by the movie. Little Ivy has the maturity to lament "I'm not sure who I am anymore... and I want to know! I've GOT to know!" Then the hypnotist provides the least convincing example of an "objective" party by telling Ivy "You are not Ivy, you are someone else." Leading, anyone?

SPOILERS>>>
Ivy is hypnotized, we get non-convincing evidence that she IS the reincarnation, etc., and she dies. This leads Anthony to repeat "It's all right now." And I wanted John and/or Marsha to say "Uh, exactly how is this all right? Our daughter is dead, and she probably wouldn't have been if you had never come into our lives." This is another thing the movie just assumes its audience will swallow, the accumulation of which really makes the viewer turn against the movie. <<<END SPOILERS

So there you have it. Kind of a waste of time, but for the eye-candy of the alluring John. Again, I think you could have a very interesting movie, or even remake, if we just took the perspective that Anthony IS nuts, and infiltrates and ultimately ruins this family. But what we have here... there is a better use for good plastic. And your time.

Audrey Rose owes its very existence to The Exorcist.This is not to imply we are talking ripoff here because it is in no way a copy or crib of that movie.There are very clear similarities however -an 11 year old girl with major behavioural changes ,a deeply worried mother and a stranger who seemingly has all the answers .However ,in the words of a character in the movie ,Elliott hoover (Anthony Hopkins)"We are not talking about possession .We are talking about reincarnation"It also follows the Friedkin in being as much about parental fear -"what has gotten into my child"as it is about supernatural elements
The Templetons are a prosperous New York family consisting of dad Bill (John Beck),mom Janice (Martha Mason)and 11 year old Ivy (Susan Swift).They notice they are being observed by a stranger ,Hoover and Janice reports him to the police, fearing he may be a predatory peadophile.They have to let him go as he has done nothing wrong .Later he contacts the family and tells them of the death in a car accident of his wife and small daughter Audrey Rose .He has been told by a psychic that his daughter has been reincarnated as Ivy .His request of the family is that he be allowed to see Ivy from time to time .
Events seem to lend creedence to his story-Ivy has vivid nightmares and fits .She evn burns her hand on cold glass in a re-enactment of Audrey Rose's terror as she strives to escape the burning death car.Then things turn darker when he reveals that she and Audrey Rose share a common soul and Audrey Rose wishes her to die so she can prepare for a new birth.
Matters culminate in a trial for kidnapping as Hoover's defence attorney basis his case on the truth of reincarnation and a parade of witnesses for and against reincarnation take their place on the stand .The end will be uplifting or depressing ,depending on what stance you take on the issue of reincarnation
The movie is very well acted by all concerned and is a highly charged and emotional movie that will get debate started on the issues it raises .My big problem is with the script by Frank de Felitta -author of the source novel -which is overt propaganda for reinacrnation beliefs .This unbalanaces the movie and lessens its impact
Robert Wise directs superbly and the movie is never less than engrossing .I just wish it were more even handed in its debate