DailyView: Day 149, Movie 227

I came across this film on Amazon Prime, The Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, and it sounded interesting. Then I started it and I saw Jodie Foster listed which surprised me, followed by Martin Sheen. I had never heard of this movie so I was shocked to see such big names attached to it.

There was some real creepiness in this movie, coming in several different areas. Not only is Martin Sheen’s character Frank just about as horrendous of a human being as you are going to find, Jodie Foster’s 13-year old Rynn Jacobs is calculatingly cold.

Rynn lived alone in a high class Quebec city, pretending that her father was living with her. The local residents were interested in the little girl and her mysteriously absent father. Predator Frank Hallet (Martin Sheen) was an adult who started to clearly approach Rynn with inappropriate thoughts in mind. Frank’s mother Cora (Alexis Smith) seemed to target Rynn in an effort to find out the truth of the little girl.

What they discover was not what they expected.

The film is totally uneasy. Not one of the characters feel like a good person. Rynn is a liar and has a darkness about her, but she was the best of the characters. Frank is such a monumental a-hole that you absolutely hope he will wind up getting his. The finale of the movie was satisfying.

The performances are all fantastic. These actors bring their best work to make you feel downright icky about them.

This won several Saturn Awards and is considered one of the best horror films. However, it feels more like a thriller than a horror movie. It was a controversial film, but I enjoyed it a lot.