Audrey Rose (1977)

Before The Silence of the Lambs (1991) revitalised his career, Anthony Hopkins hammed it up in less successful movies like Audrey Rose.

Directed by Robert Wise – whose credits include The Sound of Music (1965) and The Andromeda Strain (1971) – this film cashes in on the 1970s post-Exorcist interest in possession and the supernatural, with a tale about a 12-year-old girl called Ivy Templeton (Susan Swift), who Englishman Elliot Hoover (Hopkins) believes may in fact be a reincarnation of his deceased daughter, Audrey Rose, who died in a horrific car accident.

Complicating matters is the fact that Ivy keeps having seizures, creating the impression that she’s “reliving” Audrey’s death.

The cast – including Marsha Mason and John Beck as Ivy’s understandably concerned parents – is capable, but in the end, it’s let down by the drawn-out plot and the unlikely ending.

Elliot Hoover
Anthony Hopkins
Janice Templeton
Marsha Mason
Bill Templeton
John Beck
Ivy Templeton/Audrey Rose
Susan Swift
Dr Steven Lipscomb
Norman Lloyd
Scott Velie
John Hillerman
Brice Mack
Robert Walden
Judge Langley
Philip Sterling
Mary Lou Sides
Ivy Jones
Russ Rothman
Stephen Pearlman
Maharishi Gupta Pradesh
Aly Wassil
Mother Veronica
Mary Jackson

Director
Robert Wise

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