Das Kindermädchen

"The Guardian" was one of those films that passed through the hands for several directors (including Sam Raimi, who left to direct, "Darkman") and writers, before veteran William Friedkin came aboard, more as a 'director for hire' (think George Pan Cosmatos or Jack Lee Thompson in the 80's / early 90's) than an 'auteur'.

Friedkin was hired in the hopes that his masterpiece "The Exorcist" ('73) helped in the promotion of "The Guardian" as Friedkin's second entrance into the horror genre and after the box office failures of his two previous films, the stylish and vastly underrated, "To Live and Die in L.A." ('85) and "Rampage" ('87), the director needed a sure thing hit to re-establish himself for the 90's crowd.

Maybe "The Guardian" wasn't exactly the right project, because even if Friedkin did some rewrites to the shooting script, when something is a mess to begin it, even a mad genius can't do miracles.

The movie is about some druid nanny that kidnaps 4 weeks old babies to fed them to a huge tree in a dark forest, and the formulaic plot follows a young couple with a new born male baby that in the end will stop the nanny's obscure activities.

"The Guardian" is stylish directed and photographed, presenting peculiar camera angles and polished visuals, unfortunately the editing is a mess, the script is lousy and some scenes are so ridiculously staged that defies any sense of logic that looked like the movie was directed by a number of different directors, each one with a different view on the film's overall mood and atmosphere.

Some scenes are pure Friedkin's visual fanfare, like the beginning with the owl and showing the nanny with the previous family or the wolfs' siege at the architect house, grim, dark and moody with the mastered touch of creating the sense of dread upon the viewer, in other scenes looked like it was directed by some B-filmmaker trying to poorly mimmick Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" franchise, with badly staged sequences, like the three burglars in the park that got slaughtered by the huge tree, that were even worse acted, photographed and delivered.

In terms of performances, the english beauty Jenny Seagrove, from "Woman of Substance" ('85) fame, is very good in the role of the dark nanny, Camilla Grandier, she's expressive, seductive and charming in her evilness and she can act well with her dazzling blue eyes, leaving a strong mark into the plethora of horror movies villains. Like she herself said, and this reviewer agreed, she deserved a much better written film.

I don't know why, maybe due to the limited budget, William Friedkin gave the co-leading role of Phil Sterling, the baby's dad, to his stock character actor, Dwier Brown, when his more relevant role was playing Kevin Costner's dad in the flashback scenes of previous year's, "Field of Dreams" ('89). Brown sports a dumb face for the most part of the film and his reactions to Seagrove's acting is like seeing a rookie trying to upstage a veteran and failing miserably.

Former Bond girl in "License to Kill" ('89), hottie Carey Lowell fares better in an underused role of the mom and Miguel Ferrer is as essential to the plot as an umbrella in a sunny day. Brad Hall as Ned Runcie, the architect, who resembled a lot Woody Harrelson back in the day, shines in one of the best scenes in the film, the aforementioned wolfs' siege.

The big finale is the cherry on the top of the cake in terms of its ridiculousness. Suddenly the movie stops being subtle and went all "Evil Dead 2" rip-off with Dwier Brown dressing a blue shirt, same hairstyle and with a chainsaw fighting a tree, roaring and screaming with blood oozing to his face and gore everywhere. It's so Bruce Campbell versus Evil Dead, that Friedkin should have been ashamed of directing such a blatant carbon copy.

In short, "The Guardian" tried to be a realistic thriller / suspense film about a nanny kidnapping babies and a modern dark fantasy fairytale at the same time, somewhere beetween that and the constant rewrites and Friedkin's lack of heart in the project, the movie was lost for the worse. It didn't worked. Two years later, Curtis Hanson handled this plot better, minus the druids' non-sense, and directed "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" ('92), which was a huge critically and box office success.

I give it a 5.5, increasing to 6 here, due to Friedkin's visual elegance and some interesting camera angles.

I've seen this film now 3 or 4 times over the last 14 years or so, and everytime I'm amazed how bad it is and embarrassed that I'd forgotten and watched it again. It's bad filmmaking from start to finish, very sad when you consider who the director is. I can't for the life of me understand why Friedkin made this film, must've payed nicely but it's got "TV-movie" written all over it. The script is utterly bad, I'm sure Friedkin must've known because he doesn't seem to invest anything in the direction, it's completely flat and uninvolving save for the (thankfully) lack of music. The lovely Seagrove (ooo', British accent, scaaary villain) seems uninterested as Camilla while ex-Bond girl Lowell (sporting a terrible haircut) just stands around doing absolutely nothing pretty much throughout the entire film. Brown is probably best, giving it his all with a character as dumb as they come. Some other fine actors are wasted; Ferrer and Randle are seen in two short scenes, and Berkley in one - alright, so he was a bit-part player back then but still. The different babies playing the todler are given a rough-and-tumble time, snatched out of hands, pushed, and thrown around. This film is just a mess, it's boring, no sense of timing, badly paced and constructed. It's supposed to be a horror film, but it lacks the two all important ingredients - atmosphere and suspense.

A solid enough horror from Friedkin but he is let down by some rather mundane performances and general lack of charisma. Jenny Seagrove is the exception here, not someone who I know much of, apart from her relationship with the late Michael Winner, but she is very strong here. Indeed, the only actor who is consistently believable throughout. She does well as the sweet girl who may not be so sweet, deals well with the nudity and lets it all hang out in the tumultuous finale. Overall though the film lapses occasionally into silliness now and again and this detracts from the fact that it is an original film that tries to do something different and if it is not quite as disturbing as it wants to be, it certainly contains plenty of gore and violence.

** 1/2 out of ****

I always enjoy a good splatter flick and while I wouldn't necessarily call The Guardian a "good" film, it sure as hell is an entertaining one. The plot's pretty silly, with Jenny Seagrove as Camilla, a newly hired caretaker of a young couple's (Dwier Brown and Cary Lowell) infant son. Camilla appears to be the perfect nanny, sweet and loving, but actually, she's a Druid who needs the baby to prolong her immortal life, or something to that effect (the movie really didn't explain too much, and if you think I gave anything away by mentioning her as a Druid, the opening subtitles already state that info). She's also got a weird relationship with a big tree in the forest.

The film's got a lot of stupidity here and there, especially the young couple, who don't bother checking Camilla's references before hiring her, or the fact that this caretaker happens to be able to move around so many residences freely without too much suspicion (okay, for a while, at least). And considering the fact Camilla's a Druid, where'd she get this tree? This is set in L.A., not Europe. As I said before, not much is answered, and I guess I should be grateful because I can't imagine any answers that wouldn't delve the material into further silliness.

But I credit director William Friedkin for handling all this with a straight face. Some of this stuff (particularly the scenes with the tree) could have been played as camp, but I'm rather glad Friedkin plays this seriously and, as he did with The Exorcist, he manages to craft some truly suspenseful and frightening moments. Still, the film does slide into scenes that are too silly to be taken very seriously; you'll know what I mean when you see the chainsaw scene near the end of the movie.

Unlike The Exorcist, he shows no restraint with violence, preferring to give us several enjoyably gory death scenes and a LOT of blood spattering everywhere. There's also a decent amount of nudity present, courtesy of the rather lovely Jenny Seagrove. She's not quite as effective a horror villainess as, say, Mathilda May in Lifeforce, but gets the job done. Dwier Brown and Cary Lowell are okay, a little flat during some scenes and certainly not aided by a script that makes them act like idiots, but are convincing enough as caring and concerned parents.

Surprisingly very little music is used, with Friedkin trying to use the sounds of the wind and other such natural elements to create goosebumps. It's a good attempt, and while it works during two very lengthy, suspenseful sequences, he's still no M. Night Shyamalan. Considering the rather negative critical response The Guardian received, it's easy to see why Friedkin hasn't made a genre film since. But I enjoyed almost every minute of it would recommend it to horror fans seeking a quick-paced, gory thriller.

To all those who gave this a 4 or less--you wouldn't know a good piece of film-making if it bit you in the ass.Granted,it's one of Friedkin's lesser efforts,but it blows away 95% percent of the horror films out there,in my opinion.There's some cornball stuff in it,but there's a well-executed kind of tension in the way it's filmed-great cinematography,a mood to some of the scenes that is creepy & effective.Also,I think the distributors made a mistake pumping the fact it was from "the director of the Exorcist".Big mistake.Anyhow,most people would think "The Hand that Rocks The Cradle" was a better movie(it scores a 6.2)than "The Guardian",but there's no accounting for taste,as the man said.