Somewhat creepy horror movie with a supernatural edge to it, kind of a more horror oriented "Hand that Rocks the Cradle". Basically, a couple with their first child hires a nanny with a very dark and disturbing secret. She has chosen this baby for a reason and it is not to simply make it hers. As far as horror movies it is somewhat good, it has some gore, a couple of tense scenes and some nudity. However, if you watch the cut version of this movie the whole thing changes to the point almost all the scares and creepy stuff is taken out. They seem to completely edit over the first scene involving the baby taken to the tree, a scene later with the mother makes it out that the child survived and is safe and sound. The regular version is not so chipper. The ending is screwed up to as it ends earlier and they basically cut out the final scene. I realize that you want to cut out some stuff so you can show your movie on the happy time family network, but in the end you should not edit a movie to the point its plot and meaning change. So for an okay horror movie with some creepy scenes and such give this movie a shot, for a pedestrian movie with basically no scares and all creepiness removed try and find the cut version of the film.
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DeuceWild_779 April 2020"The Guardian" was one of those films that passed through the hands for several directors (including Sam Raimi, who left to direct, "Darkman") and writers, before veteran William Friedkin came aboard, more as a 'director for hire' (think George Pan Cosmatos or Jack Lee Thompson in the 80's / early 90's) than an 'auteur'.
Friedkin was hired in the hopes that his masterpiece "The Exorcist" ('73) helped in the promotion of "The Guardian" as Friedkin's second entrance into the horror genre and after the box office failures of his two previous films, the stylish and vastly underrated, "To Live and Die in L.A." ('85) and "Rampage" ('87), the director needed a sure thing hit to re-establish himself for the 90's crowd.
Maybe "The Guardian" wasn't exactly the right project, because even if Friedkin did some rewrites to the shooting script, when something is a mess to begin it, even a mad genius can't do miracles.
The movie is about some druid nanny that kidnaps 4 weeks old babies to fed them to a huge tree in a dark forest, and the formulaic plot follows a young couple with a new born male baby that in the end will stop the nanny's obscure activities.
"The Guardian" is stylish directed and photographed, presenting peculiar camera angles and polished visuals, unfortunately the editing is a mess, the script is lousy and some scenes are so ridiculously staged that defies any sense of logic that looked like the movie was directed by a number of different directors, each one with a different view on the film's overall mood and atmosphere.
Some scenes are pure Friedkin's visual fanfare, like the beginning with the owl and showing the nanny with the previous family or the wolfs' siege at the architect house, grim, dark and moody with the mastered touch of creating the sense of dread upon the viewer, in other scenes looked like it was directed by some B-filmmaker trying to poorly mimmick Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" franchise, with badly staged sequences, like the three burglars in the park that got slaughtered by the huge tree, that were even worse acted, photographed and delivered.
In terms of performances, the english beauty Jenny Seagrove, from "Woman of Substance" ('85) fame, is very good in the role of the dark nanny, Camilla Grandier, she's expressive, seductive and charming in her evilness and she can act well with her dazzling blue eyes, leaving a strong mark into the plethora of horror movies villains. Like she herself said, and this reviewer agreed, she deserved a much better written film.
I don't know why, maybe due to the limited budget, William Friedkin gave the co-leading role of Phil Sterling, the baby's dad, to his stock character actor, Dwier Brown, when his more relevant role was playing Kevin Costner's dad in the flashback scenes of previous year's, "Field of Dreams" ('89). Brown sports a dumb face for the most part of the film and his reactions to Seagrove's acting is like seeing a rookie trying to upstage a veteran and failing miserably.
Former Bond girl in "License to Kill" ('89), hottie Carey Lowell fares better in an underused role of the mom and Miguel Ferrer is as essential to the plot as an umbrella in a sunny day. Brad Hall as Ned Runcie, the architect, who resembled a lot Woody Harrelson back in the day, shines in one of the best scenes in the film, the aforementioned wolfs' siege.
The big finale is the cherry on the top of the cake in terms of its ridiculousness. Suddenly the movie stops being subtle and went all "Evil Dead 2" rip-off with Dwier Brown dressing a blue shirt, same hairstyle and with a chainsaw fighting a tree, roaring and screaming with blood oozing to his face and gore everywhere. It's so Bruce Campbell versus Evil Dead, that Friedkin should have been ashamed of directing such a blatant carbon copy.
In short, "The Guardian" tried to be a realistic thriller / suspense film about a nanny kidnapping babies and a modern dark fantasy fairytale at the same time, somewhere beetween that and the constant rewrites and Friedkin's lack of heart in the project, the movie was lost for the worse. It didn't worked. Two years later, Curtis Hanson handled this plot better, minus the druids' non-sense, and directed "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" ('92), which was a huge critically and box office success.
I give it a 5.5, increasing to 6 here, due to Friedkin's visual elegance and some interesting camera angles. -
Fella_shibby25 March 2016This movie was lacking in both suspense and b movie fun. I saw this on a rented VHS in early 90s. There's just nothing really scary about the tree. Even worse is that a great director like Friedkin (the exorcist, bug, killer Joe, rules of engagement, the French connection). can't bring any tension from anything but quite a bit of nudity and some extremely gory scenes. I hated this movie. Not only is it a chore to sit through with the tedious pace, its inexplicably stupid as well. We are given no proper explanation as to why all these events are transpiring, nor do they bother to tell us why a damn tree is wreaking all this havoc. We also get no proper character development. I think a nanny bathing with a baby naked would be questionable. This movie contained such annoying nonsense. The movie has Carey Lowell (licence to kill). Dwier Brown (the house 1 n 2, red dragon). Jenny Seagrove. Miguel Ferrer (iron man 3, Robocop, night flier).
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Li-110 July 2003** 1/2 out of ****
I always enjoy a good splatter flick and while I wouldn't necessarily call The Guardian a "good" film, it sure as hell is an entertaining one. The plot's pretty silly, with Jenny Seagrove as Camilla, a newly hired caretaker of a young couple's (Dwier Brown and Cary Lowell) infant son. Camilla appears to be the perfect nanny, sweet and loving, but actually, she's a Druid who needs the baby to prolong her immortal life, or something to that effect (the movie really didn't explain too much, and if you think I gave anything away by mentioning her as a Druid, the opening subtitles already state that info). She's also got a weird relationship with a big tree in the forest.
The film's got a lot of stupidity here and there, especially the young couple, who don't bother checking Camilla's references before hiring her, or the fact that this caretaker happens to be able to move around so many residences freely without too much suspicion (okay, for a while, at least). And considering the fact Camilla's a Druid, where'd she get this tree? This is set in L.A., not Europe. As I said before, not much is answered, and I guess I should be grateful because I can't imagine any answers that wouldn't delve the material into further silliness.
But I credit director William Friedkin for handling all this with a straight face. Some of this stuff (particularly the scenes with the tree) could have been played as camp, but I'm rather glad Friedkin plays this seriously and, as he did with The Exorcist, he manages to craft some truly suspenseful and frightening moments. Still, the film does slide into scenes that are too silly to be taken very seriously; you'll know what I mean when you see the chainsaw scene near the end of the movie.
Unlike The Exorcist, he shows no restraint with violence, preferring to give us several enjoyably gory death scenes and a LOT of blood spattering everywhere. There's also a decent amount of nudity present, courtesy of the rather lovely Jenny Seagrove. She's not quite as effective a horror villainess as, say, Mathilda May in Lifeforce, but gets the job done. Dwier Brown and Cary Lowell are okay, a little flat during some scenes and certainly not aided by a script that makes them act like idiots, but are convincing enough as caring and concerned parents.
Surprisingly very little music is used, with Friedkin trying to use the sounds of the wind and other such natural elements to create goosebumps. It's a good attempt, and while it works during two very lengthy, suspenseful sequences, he's still no M. Night Shyamalan. Considering the rather negative critical response The Guardian received, it's easy to see why Friedkin hasn't made a genre film since. But I enjoyed almost every minute of it would recommend it to horror fans seeking a quick-paced, gory thriller. -
Coventry1 April 2004Friendkin's horror film since the legendary 'The Exorcist' doesn't come close to that one's brilliancy, but it merely stands as an enjoyable waste of time. The Guardian is a rather anonymous horror entry with several macabre fairytale aspects. It's all about an all-American family that faces the ultimate nightmare: the loss of a harmless, innocent infant! A young couple just moved to Southern California when the wife is pregnant. They hire a seemly friendly nanny, but she turns out to be an evil tree-worshiper who sacrifices pure baby blood to an old tree. That is the story, I kid you not. Apparently, Friedkin tried to combine the occult, ancient rites of druids and the typically modern fear for child abuse with his film He has done more successful and effective things in his career, that's for sure. The climax of this film is extremely violent and blood-soaked. Although, it has to be said that Friendkin still knows how knows how to build up an unbearable tension Just look at the sequence in which an architect is trapped in his own house, while bloodthirsty coyotes are lurking outside his window.
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christopher-underwood1 November 2014A solid enough horror from Friedkin but he is let down by some rather mundane performances and general lack of charisma. Jenny Seagrove is the exception here, not someone who I know much of, apart from her relationship with the late Michael Winner, but she is very strong here. Indeed, the only actor who is consistently believable throughout. She does well as the sweet girl who may not be so sweet, deals well with the nudity and lets it all hang out in the tumultuous finale. Overall though the film lapses occasionally into silliness now and again and this detracts from the fact that it is an original film that tries to do something different and if it is not quite as disturbing as it wants to be, it certainly contains plenty of gore and violence.
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rmax30482314 November 2009Jenny Seagrove, whose beauty was positively pelagic in "Local Hero", is here a nanny hired by an upscale yuppie couple (Dwier Brown and Carey Lowell). She's still striking, sinewy and phocine, but the movie makes no sense whatever. It incorporates all kinds of generic devices, mostly from "The Omen," but, really, from all over the slasher area. The director, William Friedkin, has turned into one of those folk artists who assembles pieces of scrap iron and other detritus and welds them together into a sculpture so abstract that it loses all meaning except that of an assemblage of pieces of misshapen junk. And this from the guy who gave us "The Exorcist."
Is it really necessary to outline this so-called plot? Okay, but briefly.
Seagrove has these supernatural powers -- surprise! -- and has a pack of wolves to act as instruments of her will. She causes the death of the yuppies' first nanny choice, gets the job, moves in, and begins to take over the child. It's not clear why she has designs on the baby. Something to do with a sacred tree. She can cleanse her body of wounds at the tree and apparently sacrifices babies to it. Maybe the movie should have been called "Yggdrasil." That would have been the most original thing about it.
You want nonsense? Here's nonsense. The baby is unnaturally quiescent. It respondeth not to stimuli. The baby is in a room in a hospital with a doctor bending over it ("maybe encephalitis", he mutters) and the two anxious parents clutching each other in the background. The nanny enters wreathlike into the room and goes to the little baby container. She stares down at the kid, murmurs "I can make you immortal," unplugs the leads from the EKG, and begins to walk out with the wrapped-up tike. The parents yank the kid from Seagrove's arms, push her to the floor, and scoot screeching out the door. So they're in a big hospital corridor, with docs and nurses and other staff walking around, and what do they do? They RUSH OUT and GO HOME! That's so Seagrove and the wolves or coyotes can find them and harass them further because it's not yet time for the movie to end and a few more shock scenes are required to make the quota.
Two good points. (1) A couple of shots of Jenny Seagrove nude in the bathtub and being cured by the tree and standing by a brook in a moonlit glade. Very artistic, I thought. (2) The production design, which really IS good, and the photography. A pop-up illustration in a child's fairy tale book, evoking the frighteningly prickly forest that Hansel and Gretl stumble through, turns into the real thing. And that shot of Seagrove in the moonlight by the brook really IS impressive, despite the fact that you would search forever without finding a non-cultivated tree anywhere in the neighborhood of Los Angeles, never mind a spooky woodland. The rooms are unobtrusively decorated with prickly plants and various cacti. Nicely done and giving evidence of having some thought put into it, which the screenplay lacks. -
Pairic14 August 2018The Guardian: Lesser known William Friedkin film which he co-wrote and directed, he was none too happy with the result but I would classify it as good Folk Horror. There are references to Druidic Tree Worship and human sacrifuces A nanny who is really a Hamadryad has a penchant for sacrificing infants to her Mother Tree seeing as there are no druids around to do the job.
Great horror action as people are devoured by the tree, roots strangle and crush them, spikes burst up through the ground impaling unfortunates. Not having wolves to hand (it's in LA), a pack of coyotes also take care of troublesome oiks who discover not all is right about the nanny. Outdoes a lot of Nasty Nanny films. 7/10. On Horror Channel. -
moonspinner5514 May 2005William Friedkin, a director always more interested in the visceral aspects of his films rather than the performances or the emotions therein, still manages to cast good actors for his pictures and usually gets strong work from his players, but not so with "The Guardian". Adaptation of Dan Greenburg's novel "The Nanny" features Jenny Seagrove (cast rather obviously to show off her shapely nude figure) as a descendent of the ancient druids who worshipped trees (don't ask). She's hired by a yuppie couple to care for their new baby...and you can guess the rest. Colorless and listless as the actors are, Friedkin as a filmmaker appears to have lost his Midas touch (to say nothing of his mind). There's not a believable moment to be had here, only frustration with a stupid, inept plot--mostly melodramatic, and hazy to start with--that never involves the audience. Towards the end, I felt Friedkin's presence with a stylish throwaway or two, but that doesn't excuse "The Guardian" from being so vacuous and dim. * from ****
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HumanoidOfFlesh6 June 2006Phil and Kate are a young yuppie couple just on the verge of having a child of their own. As both parents are too busy to take care of the baby,they decide to enlist the services of a nanny,and after screening many candidates,they eventually welcome Camilla.It turns out that Camilla isn't quite all she claims to be,as the baby is being groomed for an ultimate union with the tree she is beholden to."The Guardian" is William Friedkin's return to the horror genre.The film itself is well-made and offers some suspense and a decent amount of gore.However the plot is cheesy and predictable and the main performances are rather bland.Sadly neglected English actress Jenny Seagrove is the definitive highlight of the film.Despite some flaws "The Guardian" is worth checking out for serious genre fans.7 out of 10.
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Cristi_Ciopron3 February 2009THE GUARDIAN seems like one of the more average achievements of master Friedkinan urban Gothic tale, a grim fairy tale fostering the audiences' fear of the woods.
Jenny Seagrove was a fine beauty and an average but interesting actress; here she gets to play 'Camilla', name of LeFanuesque resonance, and at least she offers something to glimpse at in her few nude scenes. The action keeps linear, the treatment will appear like quite unsubtle. A young and not very likable couple has a newborn son and hires a babysitter to look after himthe babysitter is Mrs. Seagrove. Very quickly Friedkin reveals that Jenny is a freak. -
rivertam2622 March 2020This was and still is one of my fave horror flicks. Directed by William Friedkin of the Exorcist the movie centers around a young couple who hire a nanny and she just happens to be a druid witch who sacrifices babies to the giant, monstrous tree in the forest. The movie is so strange and although it's not as complex or scary as the exorcist it's unique approach to the intriguing material really sells the concept. Jenny Seagrove is creepy as the nanny. The cinematography is appropriately fantastical as is the dread inducing score but the real sell here is the confident and inspired direction. Friedkin takes a concept that could have easily been a goofy mess and makes you take it seriously and for that alone it's worth a watch.
Budget: N/A Domestic Box Office: $17m Worldwide Box Office: $17m
4.25/5 -
This is an entertaining horror movie that tries to cover fairytale and occult aspects with the aid of splatter and some tension. The beginning of the movie is actually very creepy and sets the mood for the rest of the movie although it gets dull at some points.
The plot is very interesting and truly makes you worry about the lead character and her baby (you can clearly notice the baby is a dummy in the climatic scene). Really, the plot is macabre and very well done executed.
The direction is pretty stylish for a low budgeter like this. The man who brought us "The Exorcist" still got the touch when creating tense scenes with bits of macabre. I can say that the direction was eerie and that early 90's feeling adds some tension to the picture.
The husband , who looks somehow like Ash from "EviL Dead II" sawing the tree is the highlight of the movie and offers some glorious gore. Talking about gore, the ending is memorable. Gorehounds will be very pleased with all the splatter and tree massacre sequences.
Overall, this is an entertaining movie that should be more enjoyed by b-enthusiasts. The creepy scenes and direction make it an interesting option. -
Kristinartist7927 July 2009This movie was totally predictable and not that entertaining. By predictable, I mean the scary part of it, you know the nanny is going to be a bad news, you know they are going to find out and eventually save the baby, as scary movies tends to end that way. But even the method of saving the baby was not surprising, as it happened so fast. I saw this because my fiancé wanted to see it so I did not have any interest. The movie starts with the Alan wanting Molly to go back to work even though she has a baby and does not seem to want to leave her him and they seem to have enough money. Yet Molly goes along with Alan and hires a guardian without any questions. I would have expected her to argue or refuse (well refusing wouldn't work because the nanny is how the story starts). As a matter a fact, Molly makes a joke about how she does not trust her husband with the nanny they interviewed (who they eventually hired) because she is so pretty. At that point they were leaning towards this other woman they interviewed who seemed ideal; a college student majoring in education,with an ambition to teach the child to swim. After she dies, they automatically accept this woman no questions asked, even though to me she seemed very strange, getting to involved in things that should not be her business, such as her obsession over her belief of breast feeding. Regardless of all this, the very protective mother, who didn't even want to leave the child in the first place, accepts this nanny and does not even bother to check her references. After that, she lets the nanny practically raise the child, letting her take baths with him naked and the father waled in. Although I have family in England and they are not as uptight with nudidty, (which is fine) I think a nanny bathing with a baby naked would be questionable. This movie contained such annoying nonsense. The nanny actually wanted to kidnap the baby so she could feed it to the tree, and actually she was the spirit of the tree, which is not a particularly scary or interesting story line. They had this really weird sex scene; it is not uncommon for horror movies to have sex scenes, but this was weird. Alan had a dream of the nanny magically appearing and having sex with him, without his concent and it was not like some fantasy or anything; he seemed freaked out. He never seemed interested her that way and she never showed any interest in him romantically or any men for that matter, so what was the point of that scene? As a matter a fact, her only focus was feeding the baby breast milk so she could feed him to the tree. They tried to hook her up with their friend causing him to find out that she was doing something strange in the forest, which he learned when he followed her out one night she had off, to ask her to go out with him. This is not a story line that would be scary for adults; it sounds likes something from a children's fairy tale.
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Jen-613 February 1999This movie was more stylized than your usual horror flick. The premise was very unusual & might be a good movie for those who don't care for traditional horror movies.
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Johnb-1824 March 2000I wonder what the underlying logic behind making this movie was. I guess it's trying to be a supernatural rip-off of The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. The Guardian does have two cool gore scenes but the rest of the movie is a serious snore. Now I like killer nanny movies as much as the next guy, but this movie was lacking in both suspense and b movie fun. There is no sense of humor in the movie.
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tone14327 May 2008To all those who gave this a 4 or less--you wouldn't know a good piece of film-making if it bit you in the ass.Granted,it's one of Friedkin's lesser efforts,but it blows away 95% percent of the horror films out there,in my opinion.There's some cornball stuff in it,but there's a well-executed kind of tension in the way it's filmed-great cinematography,a mood to some of the scenes that is creepy & effective.Also,I think the distributors made a mistake pumping the fact it was from "the director of the Exorcist".Big mistake.Anyhow,most people would think "The Hand that Rocks The Cradle" was a better movie(it scores a 6.2)than "The Guardian",but there's no accounting for taste,as the man said.
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Not a bad horror film. During the age of the druids, there were supposedly people who worshipped trees, even going so far as to make human offerings to them. There were, however, those that worshipped the trees in order to raise some sort of good spirit while others did it to praise its evil spirit. An English woman posing as a babysitter is one of the latter. She takes a job as a sitter for an oblivious newlywed couple who have yet to suspect other plans for their newborn son. That is, as the cliché usually goes, until someone learns the woman secrets (usually as witnesses to her bizarre behavior) and tries to warn the naive couple. But not without the retaliation of the English woman, her pack of coyotes, and the spirit of the trees. But, as most horror movies also go, it is not long before the couple will have to do their best to save their son and get rid of the evil that has befallen their unsuspecting family. This is, as the filmmakers allude to in the introduction, a modern variation of Hansel and Gretel.
Typical material follows horror film conventions completely by the book, but it's rather unique setting (a dangerous tree hugger) and ignorance of the blah couple for most of the film, make it a decent horror film. Horror fluff, but entertaining nonetheless. Don't be fooled, however, by director William Friedken's name attached to the publicity as this lacks much of the exciting suspense and power of his early masterpiece, The Exorcist. If nothing else, if your in the mood for a horror film with sophisticated sprinkling of gratuitous nudity and a cheesy story, you might not be disappointed. -
windypoplar17 October 2006I remember seeing the edited version of this film years ago on cable and thinking. Gee, that was weird. Finally now though, the original version of William Friedkin's film is out. Frankly, given its ludicrous plot, the film isn't bad. There are some good scares here. The scene where Camilla's wolves stalk Runcie in his glass house is great. Scary, violent and real. Unfortunately, its the best scene by far.
The cast is really good in this "nanny from hell" story. Jenny Seagrove is sexy, yet spooky. Cary Lowell and Dwier Brown are fine. The supporting work from Miguel Ferrer and Brad Hall is top-notch.
The plot is just too silly to be true, so this doesn't work that well and too many scenes are just dumb. The punks at the park, the chainsaw versus bloody tree, etc. The music is bad and the photography sucks. So why give this a shot? Because its by a master film-maker and and, if your'e really into film, you can see about 3 or 4 different endings they could have used. Fun on a dark, rainy night. -
Maciste_Brother15 July 2004Whether you like THE GUARDIAN or not, make sure to watch EYES OF FIRE, an independent horror film made in the early 1980s about a tree trying to get the kids from a wandering group of colonists.
This big budgeted William Friedkin horror film was based on a book, which the author, Dan Greenburg, definitely "borrowed" heavily from the indie horror movie.
The idea of sacrificial offerings for a sentient tree is actually pretty good but in this case, no one, including the director, had their hearts in this project and the whole thing just feels like they filmed it because they were paid to do it, nothing else.
There are some interesting moments here and there. And the cast is attractive. But the film never creates any foreboding atmosphere, which it clearly needed from the get go. In the end, THE GUARDIAN just looks like a a silly TV movie of the week about some yuppies not being able to live their perfect lives because they're being tormented by something "out there." -
Jenny Seagrove is an attractive nanny who is actually a wicked druid tree priestess who needs the life-forces of newborn infants in order to preserve her powers (or something like that) in William Friedkin's failed but decent horror/thriller. Proud new parents, Jill and Kate think that their new nanny is the perfect woman until their friends start getting murdered and conspiracies about missing babies start to unfold. Due to plot contrivances and muddled intentions that make the action seem at times preposterous, this is considered by many as Friedkin's most worthless effort. Although, if folk/horror combined with some good, moody suspenseful kills and plenty of blood and eroticism, you won't go wrong. The film's best scene has an inquiring neighbor surrounded and circled by ravenous coyotes through his lavish, decor house just before he's ripped to pieces. Seagrove heads a pretty good cast if not always believable, but what do you expect from a story about a tree-witch that steals babies anyway? Enjoy it for what it is.
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Smells_Like_Cheese22 November 2003Ladies and gentlemen, the director of the brilliant crime drama "The French Connection" and the horrifying "Exorcist" comes the lame "horror" movie "The Guardian". Why? Where the heck was he going with this?
************POSSIBLE SPOILERS***************
If you suspect your nanny is weird, she'll sacrifice your baby to a tree? If a strange person calls you up and says "I had that nanny too and she sacrificed my child", you automatically believe her?
Oh, my God. Please, William. Whatever you do, don't do this again. I am insulted.
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richard-III20 February 2005This film is not bad at all. It has the delicious Jenny Seagrove (from "A Woman Of Substance" fame), and some themes that come from the Celtic world, like living trees and baby-napping. Read all about The Green Man legend (Kingsley Amis wrote a novel about it, BBC did a very good documentary on it, Robin Hood and wood god Pan are one and the same according to it, some British Christian churches have him above their pillars). THE GUARDIAN is not as even as another Celtic themed film, THE WICKER MAN, and sometimes it is too Hollowoodish for its own good, but Friedkin's directing style is still superior to many others.
Try looking at this film with a burning white candle and some incense, and maybe some Clannad before and after. :-) -
juniorrickman3 August 2020A sexy nanny charms her way into a young couple's life so that she can steal their baby to use as a sacrifice for the tree god she worships.
Yes, it's silly and ridiculous, but Friedkin treats the subject matter with upmost seriousness and there are a few exciting sequences that The Guardian worth recommending including a few Evil Dead-esque tree attacks and one scene where a tree spews out gallons of blood when it's cut down with a chainsaw. -
SnoopyStyle22 July 2016Molly and Allan Sheridan leave their baby with their nanny Diana Julian. She's a druid who sacrifices the baby to worship the tree. She and the baby disappear. Phil (Dwier Brown) and Kate Sterling (Carey Lowell) move from Chicago to Santa Monica. Phil has a new advertising job and Kate has a new baby. They hire nanny Camilla Grandier (Jenny Seagrove) after the one they wanted has a deadly accident. Camilla and the baby get chased into the woods by three thugs. The rapists cut Camilla but the tree and wolves kill the thugs. The neighbor Ned Runcie takes a liking to Camilla.
William Friedkin tries his hand on another horror. The problem is that it's never scary. The characters are rarely compelling. The tree effects seem second rate. There is little to no tension since the young couple has no rooting interest. They are very bland. The most memorable thing that Jenny Seagrove does is get naked and get into the tree makeup. There are unreasonable character traits. For example, Kate is much too compassionate to Camilla when Phil starts making accusations. Kate should be much more of a mamma bear. At the hospital, they don't call in security and instead they run home where inevitably Camilla will follow. There are plenty of wrong turns and uninspired roads in this Friedkin side trip.