This seemed intriguing from its synopsis and, having received a "Special Edition" treatment on DVD, I had high hopes for it but, ultimately, the movie proved a disappointment! Hence, I contrived to end my Halloween challenge this year with a whimper as opposed to a bang (worse still, it wasn't even really a horror film)!!
Anyway, the plot has to do with the kidnapping of a child from a foster home by its natural but unbalanced mother (Ellen Barber); aiding her is a creepy carny played for all the eccentricity he's worth by Richard Lynch (his egomaniac here isn't all that different from the actor himself, as seen in his 15-minute career overview included on Media Blasters' DVD). The foster mother (Sharon Farrell) discovers she has paranormal abilities and attempts to locate her adopted daughter with the help of her befuddled husband's expert black female colleague. All the while, however, she has to contend with weird hallucinations apparitions by a bloodied Barber (she having been killed by her own partner) and especially the recurring forming of ice on mirrors as if to obfuscate her view into the psyche (which, at one point, even causes Farrell to crash her car). Reliable veteran character actor Jeff Corey also appears as the investigating Police Detective.
The film had potential (in the accompanying interview, director Schnitzer states that when he was offered the original script which he reworked the parapsychology element wasn't even present!) but the end result is slow, muddled (would-be surreal visuals aren't enough in this case to keep one interested), pretentious (there's no explanation, for instance, as to why Lynch and Barber have to go into the occasional psychotic rage which is as close as it comes to horror throughout), dull and even ludicrous (the finale in which the girl is 'lured' into the open by having Farrell play a tune on a grand piano in the town square in the middle of the night in front of an audience of curious onlookers!).