Bless the Child

Oscar winner Kim Basinger's search for a strong female role to follow LA Confidential has taken her down a particularly gruesome blind alley with this occult thriller. She plays a successful nurse, a single woman whose maternal instincts are unexpectedly stirred when wayward younger sister Bettis lumbers her with a baby daughter. As time passes, she comes to understand that the little girl is 'special', and she's prepared to fight for custody when the reformed smackhead mum pitches up to reclaim her offspring. The latter arrives supported by Sewell, a celebrity self-help guru with a dark secret. Not only is he trying to conceal an English accent, but he and his national organisation are footsoldiers of Satan, and bent on eliminating the telekinetic moppet sent from above as our earthly salvation. The use of child jeopardy as a cheap suspense mechanism is somewhat dubious, but one's unease is slightly mollified by the fact that much of this is far too silly to take seriously.