The only thing worthwhile about this embarrassment is the opening 20 seconds or so. Very moody, intriguing, even brave. Everything after that is hopeless. Clearly aping The Exorcist (Marsha Mason isn't fit to drink from Ellen Burstyn's shoe), the film ends up being a weird hash of TV movie and student film... even Marsha Mason bashed it one year after it came out (!). Really, Wise must've been directing this from the catering truck or something. A few things that had me almost hating this ting from the opening credits (none are spoilers). Everyone is smiling so hard their faces will break, even when doing something no real person would smile during.... like being alone in a dark room. Ear to ear smile in a home dark room looking at the 10000000th shot of your kid? No. When the girl is handed a single balloon by her dad in the park she practically explodes with glee, running around like a person with some sort of a problem. All of this serves to fulfill a dreadful movie cliche: all of these people are soon to be miserable so let's see the counterpoint. Look how far they've fallen. It's on the level of junior high emotional appeal...Then, mom waits outside her daughter's school door. The instant the bell rings - in fact I believe the ringing overlaps this - kids begin pouring out of the doors. That's not how it works. Kids don't line up against the door looking at their parents through the glass waiting for a bell that allows them to open the door. That's the kind of movie this is.Finally, the worst part. Cinematography. Some of the ugliest, phoniest garbage I have ever seen outside of 1970s network tv shows. Any sequence in the apartment is utterly hideous, with light glaring off actors' cheeks and coming from all directions. Nobody's house interior ever looked like this. Oh. I spent a good stretch of the film with the subtitles on and sound muted because the girl's performance has got to be one of the most annoying things I've ever heard. See this and tell me you aren't moved into any other emotion than annoyance at all the whining. Flabbergastingly awful. I only wrote this review bec so many seem to be lukewarm about it.

Not a patch on the novel I wish they'd do remake as the book is so in depth, and the next book for the love of Audrey rose is very readable too please give this a chance it's very dated but look beyond the acting and see the emotional turmoil they were going through in the story.

I just watched Don't Look Now, and after viewing it I found myself recollecting memories of a little film by Robert Wise that was forced into obscurity, Audrey Rose. I saw Audrey Rose on a cold Halloween night for my annual "scary movie" viewing, and I was disappointed not by the film but by the fact that it really isn't that scary. It's chilling, ultra-atmospheric, and very suspenseful, but by no means terrifying. At the end I felt empty, something the director probably intended, because that's basically what the story suggests. The plot, based on a source novel by Frank De FeLitta, was inspired by an actual event in which Felitta's daughter played the piano perfectly despite having never touched one in her life. Some of his preachiness manages to seep into the screenplay, sometimes resulting in little moments where someone who completely doubts reincarnation would roll their eyes. However, the audience is so captivated that they accept what's going on. This acceptance should be accredited to Wise, who found the idea of returning to the world fascinating, but knew not everyone would be under the spell. For compensation, he puts the atmosphere at the fore front, keeping everything on a segue. Sure, the film sometimes allows the material to appear sententious and John Beck's performance is as wooden as hell, but the disorienting camera work and acting turns from the three leads (Hopkins, Mason, Swift) are all virtuoso. Anthony Hopkins, here in a role before James Ivory and The Silence of the Lambs, and even Richard Attenborough's "Magic," gives a performance so perfectly minimalist that his character's emptiness might evoke Donald Sutherland in Don't Look Now, a film primarily fueled by its structure coat fit for Hitchcock. But now, 40 years after it's initial release, this supposed Exorcist rip-off proves as ambitious as "Contact" and utterly original.

AUDREY ROSE is a thoughtful and superb supernatural thriller about reincarnation (with some Catholicism mixed in). The picture is directed by Robert Wise, whose previous work with THE HAUNTING, proves he is no stranger to these types of stories. In fact, AUDREY ROSE is so well made it screams for repeat viewings. Anthony Hopkins is featured in a key role, years before his frightening turn as the cannibalistic Hannibal Lector. He plays a man that has become convinced his young daughter-- killed in a terrible auto accident-- was reborn to an unsuspecting couple (Marsha Mason & John Beck). When the girl in question begins to experience powerful sensations of a past life, Hopkins steps out of the shadows and into their lives.