Based on the novel 'Marianne Dreams' by Catherine Storr, which had previously been adapted into the fabulous 'Escape Into Night', 'Paperhouse' is the story of 'Anna' (Charlotte Burke) who, while suffering from glandular fever discovers herself slipping into the dreamworld of her own drawings where she meets Marc (Elliott Spears), another of her Doctor's patients, who's unable to walk due to his muscular dystrophy. Very much subjected to the whims of the bad tempered Anna, who veers wildly between kindness and petulance, the pair find themselves trapped in the lonely house held seige by a warped and angry caricature of her absent father (Ben Cross).
The kid actors are kid actors and the dubbing of American actress Glennne Headly is massively distracting but director Bernard Rose's interpretation of the story is an intriguing one with some bold visuals but it pales in comparison to it's predecessor. His idea to replace the terror of the watching stones with the hammer wielding father is the most 1980s of ideas which, with mention of his drinking, gives the whole thing a whiff of psychodrama that robs the story of some of it's supernatural menace but it isn't without it's charms.
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