Harefooted Halloween: The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

What I Liked: Lots of tension throughout.  You know there’s something sinister going on with this little thirteen year old girl Rynn (Jodie Foster (Maverick)) but we’re kept in the dark for a long time.  She’s supposed to be living in this Maine country house with her father but he’s never around, she doesn’t go to school and acts very conspicuously with an excuse for everything.  And what the hell is in that cellar anyway?

Really nice acting work all around here but Foster’s performance is the highlight.  It’s also probably pretty realistic for a kid like this.  She has this deadpan stare that denotes superiority and disgust for those around her.  When she finally gets a friend in seventeen year old Mario (Scott Jacoby (Return to Horror High)) she starts to open up and let him into her world so she can warm up to the right person.  Foster has to deal with a lot of different emotions but also keep them suppressed most of the time which is a difficult task for any actor let alone such a young one.

The other quick mention acting wise I want to bring up is Martin Sheen (Firestarter) who plays a totally creepy ass pedophile.  He pivots back and forth between being disturbingly calm while making disgusting insinuations and abuzz with uncontainable energy like he can’t wait to pounce on his victim.  Very effective execution.

What I Didn’t Like: Foster’s hair with the long bangs looks absolutely terrible.  At first I couldn’t believe someone would give her a haircut like that but then I read it was actually a wig.  It’s distracting.

We could’ve been shown Rynn committing one more evil act.  There’s talk and suggestion but it just feels like the movie’s missing one tiny extra jab to push it over.

Overall Impressions: I would classify this as more of a thriller than a horror picture.  It’s a character study of this girl who’s too smart for her own good and only wants to be left alone.  The world won’t have it though so she does what she feels is necessary in order to survive.

The film is very play-like and takes place mostly in Rynn’s house.  It was eventually turned into a play twenty years later but the original source is a book of the same name written by Laird Koenig (Inchon).  I haven’t read it but from what I gather Rynn was lightened up a touch for the movie and made a bit more ambiguously malevolent.

Anyway I do recommend checking this picture out.  It ain’t blood and guts like The Brood or nothin’ so expectations will need to be calibrated.  A more sophisticated route is taken by leaving a decent amount to the imagination.