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A predictable story. (For some reason the title is now running as: The Children of the Mist.) I kept wanting to shout to Vanessa Redgrave to "Wake UP, for heaven's sake". She seemed to be in some sort of dream state; maybe trying to forget her involvement with such a dreary production.

This movie had potential but sadly it ended up being a bore most of the time. It really couldn't decide what type of movie it was. The video case sad Thriller, but it was more of a family drama with a touch of thriller. Vanessa Redgrave was excellent. I've seen her do better, but she was still good. A whole movie could have been made about her character. The actress that played the Mom was also good. Sadly, though, the main actor was terrible. He kept on ruining lines. He had his good moments, but sadly the bad ones keep playing in my mind. The little girl who played the youngest daughter was also terrible. Who cast her? The two scenes that are keepers are when Vanessa describes her life and why the children have come and the final scene between the father and Nikki. I have a system going with IMDb ratings. 10=4, 9=4, 8=3 1/2, 7=3, 6=2 1/2, 5=2, 4=1 1/2, 3=1, 2= 1/2 and 1=bomb. On that note, this film got 2 1/2 stars.

God, this is bad. Excruciatingly so. A vapid ghost story about a bereaved father who visits a medium in an effort to get back in touch with his ghostly daughter who was killed in a car wreck, it's as maudlin and mawkish as it sounds, descending into sheer sentimentality long before the end and becoming vomit-inducing with it.

The film has an ultra-cheap look to it which is no surprise given it's a TV movie from the 1990s (the cameras they shot with back then look awful to modern viewers). Everything about it is dated, from the clothes to the characters, even more so than various movies from the 1980s or even 1970s. The script is strictly cringe-worthy and the attempts to deal with the afterlife are just laughable, like the bit with all the costumed kids playing in the garden.

Another surprise is just how bad the cast are. Patrick Bergin had made a pretty good villain in SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY, but his acting is stilted and wooden in the extreme. In some scenes he's still acting like a psycho rather than a grieving father which I'm sure wasn't the effect they wanted. What Vanessa Redgrave is doing here is anyone's guess, but it proves that every actor has one or two skeletons in his/her closet. Everyone else is equally terrible, particularly those obnoxious child actors.

Nutshell.

Patrick Bergin plays a bereaved father racked by guilt who begins to see spooky things. He seeks the help of Vanessa Redgrave's medium and the meditation of grief and the will indeed will out!

Bergin is so much better than this, why he never graduated to the bigger league is probably explained in a film like this. Where he literally is reduced to smell the fart acting, half heartedly hitting walls when his wife chastise's him for carrying such burdens on his shoulders. Redgrave literally is going through the motions, probably prompted by somebody off screen waving the cheque she is earning for this nonsense.

It looks like it was filmed 20 years earlier, but not in a good way, it's devoid of scares, suspense or even intelligence (no the Lost Soul angle doesn't compensate for anything), while the dialogue is as cheese laden as the misty lenses director John Korty thinks passes for atmosphere. UGH! 2/10