Movie Type: Psychological Drama, Fantasy Adventure
Themes: Fantasy Life, Fantasy Lands
Main Cast: Charlotte Burke, Ben Cross, Glenne Headly, Elliott Spears, Gemma Jones, Sarah Newbold
Release Year: 1989
Country: UK
Run Time: 92 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Eleven-year-old Charlotte Burke, the neglected daughter of Ben Cross and Glenne Headley, passes out on the school playground and dreams of visiting a house she'd previously drawn in her composition book. She imagines another visit to her "paper house" while playing hide-and-seek. Experimenting, Burke draws a figure in the window of the house; the next time she dreams, she meets a young boy, as lonely as she. Convinced that she wields a large degree of power in her pencil, Burke draws a picture of her father, Cross, hoping that in doing so he will return home. But Burke is dissatisfied with the picture, and crosses it out--whereupon Cross shows up in her dreams as a murderous stalker. What happens next is a maelstrom of psychological horror, told completely from the child's point of view. Paperhouse is based on Marianne Dreams a novel by Catherine Storr. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Bernard Rose's Paperhouse is one of the great unknown art house horror films of the last quarter century, just for the sheer vividness of its psychological terrorscape. Once the supernatural link between Anna's crayon and her dream world is firmly established, the film takes the viewer on a hallucinatory trip that's full of foreboding. Given how the slightest alterations of the drawing have repercussions in her dreams -- the boy in the house can't walk, because he was given no legs -- it's with terrific anxiety that the viewer watches Anna violently scratch out the likeness of her father. The nightmare that follows delivers the kind of wordless horror that can only exist in the mind of a child, fixing for the viewer an unforgettable image of the angry paternal figure that lurks in the back rooms of the mind. The scenes outside of the fantasy world are of a slower pace, but they do show the real-world manifestations of Anna's fevered mental state, and flesh out some of the themes that appear in her drawing. Following this visually masterful debut, Rose went on to explore more mainstream horror filmmaking in 1992's Candyman. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
Jane Bertish - Miss Vanstone; Gary Bleasdale - Policeman; Samantha Cahill - Sharon; Karen Gledhill - Nurse; Barbara Keogh - Hotel Receptionist; Ros Hubbard; Steven O'Donnell - Dustman
Credit
Anne Tilby - Art Director, Frank Walsh - Art Director, Ros Hubbard - Casting, John Lyons - Casting, Donna Isaacson - Casting, Tim Bevan - Co-producer, Sarah Radclyffe - Co-producer, Nic Ede - Costume Designer, Waldo Roeg - First Assistant Director, Bernard Rose - Director, Dan Rae - Editor, Dan Ireland - Executive Producer, Stanley Myers - Composer (Music Score), Hans Zimmer - Composer (Music Score), Jenny Shircore - Makeup, Gemma Jackson - Production Designer, Anne Tilby - Production Designer, Frank Walsh - Production Designer, Mike Southon - Cinematographer, Alan Whibley - Special Effects, Peter Glossop - Sound/Sound Designer, Nigel Holland - Sound/Sound Designer, Gareth Milne - Stunts, Matthew Jacobs - Screenwriter, Catherine Storr - Book Author
Paperhouse is a 1988 British film directed by Bernard Rose. It was based on the novel Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr. It marked lead actress Charlotte Burke's only major film role, and also stars Ben Cross as the heroine's father. Other actors of note in the film include Jane Bertish, Samantha Cahill, Glenne Headly and Gemma Jones.
Plot synopsis
While suffering from glandular fever, 11-year-old Anna Madden draws a house. Disturbingly,when she falls asleep,she has dreams about what she draws. During her feverish dreams, she finds herself visiting the place. When she draws a face at the window, on her next visit she finds a crippled boy named Marc living in the house. From her doctor's conversation it turns out that Marc is a real person.
Anna sketches her father into the drawing so that he can help carry Marc away, but she inadvertently gives him an angry expression which she then crosses out, and the father (who has been away a lot and has a drinking problem, putting a strain on Anna's parents' marriage) appears in the dream as a furious, blinded ogre. Anna and Marc defeat the monster and shortly afterwards Anna recovers, although the doctor reveals that Marc's condition is deteriorating.
Anna's father returns home and both parents seem determined to get over their marital difficulties. The family goes on holiday by the sea. Anna, who had drawn a lighthouse into her sketch as a refuge from the sinister house, and had also supplied a helicopter to rescue Marc, visits a lighthouse on the edge of a cliff at the seaside and sees a helicopter overhead while Marc's voice invites her to join him. A rope ladder dangles from the helicopter, drawing Anna dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. Anna's parents arrive in time to prevent her falling.
Critical reaction
Film critic Roger Ebert gave Paperhouse four stars out of four and called it "a film in which every image has been distilled to the point of almost frightening simplicity" and ended by saying "this is not a movie to be measured and weighed and plumbed, but to be surrendered to".
On the television show Siskel & Ebert, Paperhouse received a "Thumbs Up" from Roger Ebert who commented "I suppose Paperhouse will be classified as a Fantasy-Thriller, but I thought it was a lot more than that. A dream movie that uses images so real and so concrete, they seem more convincing than most real-life dramas." He also noted on how effective the soundtrack was and said that Paperhouse showed that director Bernard Rose was extremely talented. Gene Siskel gave the film a marginal "Thumbs Down", but he agreed that Bernard Rose was very talented and said, "for about two-thirds of the way I was fascinated by this film". He also commented on how well the dream scenes were handled and said, "these seem to be legitimate fears that child might have". He stated that "when the film got more explicit... I thought the film went over-the-top with imagery and I got a little tired of it. Until then, I was fascinated by it."
The critics who have submitted their reviews to Rotten Tomatoes have given Paperhouse a "fresh" rating of 100%, but the users give it a "fresh" rating of 70%.
