Mia Farrow plays upper class woman who lost her eight year old daughter due to tragic circumstances.Her grief is immense.She distances herself from her wealthy husband Keir Dullea and begins to live in a flat on the outskirts of London.When paranormal party séance starts she begins to see sinister manifestations of children around her.As the story begins to unravel it seems that it's connected with brutal torture and murder of a small boy many years ago...Adapted from excellent and truly creepy Peter Straub's novel "Julia" this slow-moving ghost story is effectively eerie.The acting is fantastic and the conclusion is unforgettably devastating.The piano-and-strings score by Colin Towns adds a lot to subtle atmosphere of dread.8 spectral visions out of 10.

Perhaps some books are better left unfilmed because they are written in such a way that makes their cinematic appeal non-existent, and that is he problem with this Canadian adaption of the novel starring Mia Farrow post Rosemary's Baby/pre Woody Allen. She has witnessed a horrific death of her daughter by choking, having just moved into a house with husband Keir Dullea, and along with pal Tom Conti, drive to find out the mystery why children in that house have for some reason died. The film has very slow pacing, mainly conversations and very little ghostly action, with Farrow interviewing various adults who were witnesses to the death of a little boy years before.

The only one with any real answers is the mother of a dead girl, and she's now a very old lady. Veteran British actress Cathleen Nesbitt, once a great beauty as a young actress, gets a cameo towards the end of the film where all the mystery begins to make sense, and by this time, the view has probably lost interest. Nesbitt, then having recently been seen in some great character parts ("Family Plot", "Julia") is as striking in her cameo as she was as Cary Grant's grandmother in "An Affair to Remember" and would be when she returned to the role of Rex Harrison"s mother in "My Fair Lady" just a few years after this.

It's only in the last 15 minutes that things really began to happen including a tragic incidents concerning one of the major characters, and what works in literature obviously doesn't work in film. It's really shocking what you learn during this time but had anything really happened to make the bulk of the first 75 minutes interesting, the film could have been an interesting ghost story with a point. Outside of Farrow, the other leads (Dullea, Conti, Jill Bennett) make no real impact. This is not really a bad film. It is just uneventful and unfortunately that makes it pointless and a sad waste of time where there could have been so much more potential.

After the death of her daughter, wealthy housewife Julia Lofting (Mia Farrow) moves to London to re-start her life. All seems well until she is haunted by the sadness of losing her own child and the ghosts of other children.

This is the second film of director Richard Loncraine, and the first film adaptation of a Peter Straub novel. Loncraine has had a steady, successful career, but has never really hit the big time. Milwaukee native Straub, for whatever reason, has achieved wide critical acclaim (he has numerous Bram Stoker awards) but has never been as well-received by the public, ranking beneath Stephen King and Dean Koontz in popularity. A shame, I say.

Magnus (Keir Dullea) is a devious beast! But we like him for that. Mia Farrow is Mia Farrow... and needs more hair.