A horror movie must have many given aspects, before it captures the loyalty of it's audience. The initial ingredient of course is suspense. This must be followed by a solid story line which conjures up the dark side of imagination. Lastly, it must be held solidly by the actors which must convince the audience of their fear, terror and apprehension. In this movie which is called " Fingerprints " several key aspects are definitely present. The story is that in a small town, a dramatic and mysterious event took place which centered around the deaths of a dozen children. It seems a bus load of school children were killed when their vehicle was hit by a passing train. Years later Melanie (Leah Pipes) a returning resident arrives to finish high school, learns this may not be true. Her parents worry about her as she is also a recovering drug addict who suffers from residual delusions. From the moment she starts school, she becomes aware of her tenuous situation with her strict parents, her insincere counselor and the reoccurring apparition of one of the dead children. The movie has the surprising addition of two Hollywood veterans, Lou Diamond Phillips who plays Doug and Geoffrey Lewis playing old man Keeler. Unfortunately, the film also contains several repetitive themes borrowed from 'The Sixth Sense', 'Scream' and 'Holloween' and further does not resolve some very tense and dramatic moments. As a result, the movie is deemed acceptable, though it tries very hard to become the corner stone of an anticipated sequel. ****

Melanie Wood (Leah Pipes) is told by her older sister Crystal (Kristin Cavallari) about an urban legend of a haunted railroad crossing. A bus full of kids supposedly were killed by a train at that site. Melanie rejoins her family in their new home after a stint in rehab for heroine. She's the only who can see a mysterious girl who turns out to be Mary (Sally Kirkland)'s dead sister Julie. Doug (Lou Diamond Phillips) is the school counselor.

This is a low budget horror that suffers from a lack of vision. The kills are not that good. The killer isn't that cool. I like Leah Pipes and Andrew Lawrence is a good douche bag. The other actors are not so good. It's a fine ghost story but Harry Basil is a limited horror director.

Young Leah Pipes is fresh out of drug rehab and now moved into a new town where her parents and sister Kristin Cavallari have previously moved. There's a country legend connected with this small Texas town where a bus load of school kids were run down when their school bus got stuck on a railroad track. Or what was the real story, the secret that the town isn't crazy to get out even though this happened 40 years earlier.

Because she nearly died of a drug overdose Pipes had a near death experience and one of the dead kids keeps trying to communicate with her. Of course her clueless parents think Pipes is still drugging, her mother Sally Kirkland is incredibly unsympathetic. For no apparent reason that I can see.

The real story is quite a twist, but the story is poorly written with roles making no sense and why everyone is believing that poor Pipes is the cause of a lot of more recent tragedy makes no sense at all. Lou Diamond Phillips as a teacher/guidance counselor and Geoffrey Lewis as the former mayor of the town now the town drunk are wasted in their roles, especially Phillips whose whole character makes no sense to me.

Josh Henderson the current John Ross Ewing on the revived Dallas is also here as a sympathetic boyfriend to Pipes and Andrew Lawrence of the Lawrence brothers of Philadelphia is the school bully who Pipes gives a bad case of blue gonads to. Also wasted.

Fingerprints is a strange film which should have stuck to either being a ghost or a slasher flick. I would have preferred the ghost genre. There were elements of the classic Changeling here, but not well used.