In the spirit of Halloween...

It being Halloween and all, I decided to watch a movie in the thriller/horror/ghost genre this weekend. Lifetime Movie Network (yes - one of my guilty pleasures) did not disappoint. I watched this tiny movie called 'Dorothy Mills' starring Carice Van Houten, Jean Murray and David Wilmont. Now there are a very few ghost movies that actually tie together at the end, most just end up with a very flimsy ending that doesn't completely satisfy the viewer. But I am glad to say that this one did a good job from beginning to end.

The movie begins in a small little island off the coast of New England (and this is purely a guess on my part because I wasn't paying too much attention at the beginning of the flick) in a very closely knit community where a young girl is accused of physically abusing the child she was baby sitting for. The girl is Dorothy Mills (played by Jean Murray) and she maintains her innocence claiming that she wasn't there even though she was caught red-handed by the child's parents. Enter a very pretty Carice Van Houten as the psychiatrist Jane sent by the courts to assess Dorothy Mills' mental state. The viewer is led to guess that Jane is dealing with her very own personal tragedy involving her young son seen mainly in photos. Jane reaches the town and is almost immediately drawn into the strange goings on in the little hamlet. At first she believes that Dorothy is suffering from a multiple personality disorder but as she digs deeper she finds links to a terrible tragedy that took place in the town a few years ago.

The pace of the movie is taut (good direction by Agnès Merlet) and the story progresses rapidly to it's unexpected conclusion. All characters play their parts believably. Jean Murray is especially good in switching between the vulnerable Dorothy Mills and the various other ghosts haunting her. Carice Van Houten delivers a restrained but powerful performance as the stranger in town trying to decipher the mystery in front of her. All in all a great movie by Lifetime standards and a good movie by any other :P

Some of the better ghost/horror movies I've seen are The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Omen (who can help getting chilled to the bone by demon spawn Damien?), and one of the very first movies I saw as a youngster that introduced me to this genre - The Exorcist. Leave me some of your favourites so I can add to my collection!! Boo!