Esprit maternel

Joanna (Rebecca Romijn) and Ben Maxwell are a couple desperate to adopt a child, but her anti-depressant use is blocking them. Case worker Lydia Newman offers them a young girl from a troubled family. It's a sketchy situation, but her desperation wins out. Her mother is in long-term care struggling with dementia.

This Lifetime TV movie is trying for the supernatural, but it's not visually capable. It really should fully invest into the horror aspect of the story. The filmmaking is not good enough. The genre work is not here. This is not in Lifetime's wheelhouse. The second half flip saps most of the horror energy.

After adopting a little girl through nefarious means, a couple start to believe her attachment to her real mother might mean that her spirit is the cause of a series of supernatural attacks that they have to discover the cause of to keep their new daughter alive.

This was an absolutely enjoyable Lifetime effort that really has a lot going for it. One of the better additions to this one is the fact that the ghost here is actually a credible threat throughout and actually has some rather impacting moments on the film. Starting with the rather tame appearances before graduating to themes such as flat-out possession, body manipulation, control over the outside world and even managing to take on hauntings at several locations at the same time means that this is a rather credible threat rather than something that just happens to have a ghost involved but never really gets to do anything since it appears so sporadically. However, here it not only gets to interfere in the daily life of the family and cause a lot of mayhem, for lack of a better term in such a movie, it also manages to interact far more often without really loosing the fear. This is helpful in the later half where the ghostly hauntings becomes far more physical where they attack using items around the room with ghostly voices and ethereal light bouncing around which sounds ludicrous in many ways but actually holds together far better than expected. With a few too many plot lines that seem perfectly suited to such a platform including the step-mom's relationship with her own mother as well as the attempt at inter-family discord that drives the plodding mid-section, there's times where the horror becomes secondary which makes for a little jerking pace as it's set-up with the horror at the beginning through her mysterious arrival and quirky behavior, gets dropped for lame family squabbles and picks up again at the end with the exorcism and final battle. That said, all-in-all this was quite enjoyable.

Possessing Piper Rose or as it is sold in Europe under Possessed By evil is a perfect example of a TV horror movie. It do has all elements to call it a horror but it fails completely because it is a TV movie which means, the whole family could watch it.

The story is simple and see, sigh, a thousand times before. Joanna Maxwell (Rebecca Romijn) and her husband Ben Maxwell (David Cubitt) are a new couple. The want their own child, David already has one, but it isn't possible to have it on the natural way so they adopt a child, Piper Rose (Isabella Cramp). Of course things are wrong with Piper.

What we have next is that she sings strange songs, her mother appears as a ghost, supernatural things are happening, killers with big knifes are on the run, possessed grandmothers, in fact, everything a horror buff wants you will get in this flick but it becomes sometimes laughable because it is a TV movie. The grandmother becomes possessed by evil spirits (the mother of Piper) but her eyes (CGI) only changes from color. It is so low that even when a knife is flying through the air and cuts into the flesh it is all done off-camera and we do see the result but there's almost no blood to see that it is almost a spoof.

Me, as a mega horror buff did laugh a few times even as it wasn't mentioned to be funny. And the fact that the rebellious son hates his stepmother and naturally loves her towards the end of the flick, well, you could have guessed it in the first minute. Even the last minute of this flick is so predictable that I rather thought that it was a comedy.

If they had made it unrated well, this would be a hell of a movie but now, it's possessed by ....stupidity.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Story 3/5 Effects 2/5 Comedy 0/5

Let me tell you gore doesn't make a movie. The movie was great it goes for the old horror movie you don't need gore to make a great horror movie. Loved this movie, good effects, good acting it doesn't look like it was made for T.V. If you are a true horror fan and not a stupid little teenagers or adult I highly recommend the movie. It did scare me .It was well done. Realistic.I really love this movie is different it might look similar but is actually very different from the mainstreams possession movies. Just give it a try if you truly love art and you are not in just for the gore or the organs falling out or head chopping around that you won't find it here, but things that would make you tremble?, yes you will.

I did not know this was a Lifetime created film, but the stench of the entire production made it pretty obvious when I read that fact in reviews.

It has the Lifetime formula down pat! Perfect family with perfect husband and wife living the perfect life looking for a child to adopt!!! Then problems develop 1. Stepson vs stepmother tensions, 2. Senile mother vs perfect daughter tensions and finally 3. A small problem with vengeful ghost who wants the adopted daughter back!

Then the depressed, but otherwise PERFECT Martha Stewartesque wife sheds some of her pure motherly love and it eventually cures EVERYTHING!

When something is TOO good to be true, It usually is not real. But such is the Lifetime Fairy Tale plots.

Eventually the problem stepson goes from hating the stepmother to adoring her, the bitter senile grandmother is cured of her resentments, her senility and her hatred of her daughter!!! Oh, and that pesky ghost who tries to kill people is turned good by the pure love of the wife!

Drivel from start to finish!

A sore spot for me was when this Canadian movie included a scene at Northwestern University (my Alma Mater) suggesting that the colorless and totally looney para-psychologist professor works there! NO SUCH LUNATICS are professors at this top rated university! Why they did not use some third rate Canadian school is my question!

All in all I feel that I have been robbed of 90 minutes of my life by this sewerage of a film!!!