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After the death of his wife Sara (Tara Buck), Richard (John Mese) brings
his non-verbal autistic daughter Emmy (Faye Hostetter) to Dr. Helmond's
(Jim Holmes) clinic for highly experimental magnetic treatment - basically
because he wants to somehow break through to her, as so far it had been
Sara who mostly took care of her. Emmy seems to be more interested in her
polaroid cameras than anything else, but somehow she manages to make
friends with occult book store owner Albert (Tom Konkle) - and he's a
friend she and Richard will really need ...
It's hard to say if the magnetic treatment is any success at all, as all
it seems to bring up in Emmy are memories of her mother's accident, and
she often has panic attacks afterwards, but at least the doctor's
assistant Zandra (Juliette Jeffers) seems to really care for the girl.
Richard though finds it harder and harder to take care of her, especially
since the house they've rented freaks him out more and more, and
eventually he learns it was built on the ashes of a home for poor kids
that has been burned down to the ground, with the kids inside and all.
Albert warns Richard that the souls of the deceased might use Emmy as a
conduit to return to this world as her condition makes her vulnerable, but
it soon becomes clear that it's not she who's really at risk but Richard
...
A pretty cool spooker that chooses a slowburn approach to
build up and then unravel its mystery, works the autism angle into the
plot rather beautifully, to ultimately defy expectations in its role
within the whole, and that's carried by rather nice character arcs. And
young Faye Hostetter really gives an outstanding performance to bring her
character's autism and vulnerability across, supported by a solid
ensemble, while the direction is heavy on atmosphere but also subtle
enough to keep the audience guessing till the end, which all results in a
very well-made genre piece.
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