Review – The Guardian

Director William Friedkin Allan Smithee’d this movie, and for good reason. The concept’s not too bad: a young couple hire a nanny who turns out to be a witch who tries to sacrifice their child to a tree god. Sure, it’s not too PC, but at least it had potential. However, the script is weak, the acting weaker, and the editing weakest of all. At times the action is so poorly assembled that it’s hard to tell what’s going on. And if you happen to be watching the butchered-for-television version, your predicament is even worse. The main attraction, at least according to the early buzz when this dog first hit theaters, was the supposedly hot scene in which our villain peels off and gets friendly with a tree. But even that turned out to be so tame that it scarcely justified the price of admission, even if you got to see it for free. See if desperate