Frances Cuka
No sooner does an all-American family takes possession of a baronial English manor when all manner of peculiar things occurring, including signs that point to the disappearance of a young girl during a solar eclipse decades before. Bette Davis headlines and Lynn-Holly Johnson co-stars in this suspenseful take on haunted houses.
In the middle of this amusing thriller is a relationship between two different types of females, one is a well know British author and the other is a sex-crazed French teen. The two get into some relationship trouble while living together in this film of psychological imagery and an erotic exploration of the female body.
Based somewhat more authentically on the Grimm Brothers’ story of a young woman who is unliked by her stepmother, the film includes the talking mirror, a poisoned apple, and some ruffian gold (not diamond) miners (and they aren’t dwarfs or cute). It takes place at the time of the Crusades, and depicts the attitudes of the wealthy and the peasant classes toward one another.