Like Goobers for your brain: A treat

Rating: 8/10 (12 August 2001)

I went into this movie hoping for a nice, old-fashioned suspenseful horror movie. I was rewarded with that PLUS some brilliant performances, nervous chuckles and emotional pay-off to boot. I am not a Nicole Kidman fan (especially after MOULIN ROUGE, ugh), but I thought she was sensational in this, or as Tom says, "Nic is pitch perfect." She really is, capturing her control-freak, jittery, yet deeply maternal character to a "T." With another, less mesmerizing lead performance, the kids would have totally stolen the show. Instead, they just add on to the fun--the little girl is like a BAD SEED aspirant and the boy is adorable. You feel for his terror as he's tortured by his big sis, his controlling mom and the house he lives in. To milk so much psychologically from such a basic premise, the writer/director gets a LOT of credit.