Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn

The great Maria Bello's talents are wasted here.Rating: 1-5 (5 is an excellent or a Starred review) 4 Ghosts walk through walls, right? How does a measly cellar door hold back any self-respecting spirit? For that matter, how come we don't all regularly see swirling spirits at funerals? At cemeteries? In hospitals? Sigh. Are there no other already dead people she can hang out with in the netherworld? Even crazier is that the haunting problem is finally solved when Molly opens a stuck cellar door, freeing the ghost's dead parents' spirits from where they died to rise into the night sky in swirling white mists of scariness. In this case, a 19 th century girl died in an accident and, for generations to come, she keeps drowning other girls, supposedly so she can have company. Why do the ghosts want to scare people? Why do they kill people? What good does more dead people do them? Don't look for answers here. Nightmares are likely to be generated by nasty black flying things and ghosts luring children to drown themselves. However, just because the movie doesn't have cursing or nudity doesn't mean it's right for tweens. For parents who worry about overexposure to profanity and sex, Wait Till Helen Comes will trigger no alarm bells. Show moreĪccording to the distributor, this movie is 'a scary ghost story for children not allowed at PG-13 and R-rated movies.' In other words, it's specifically targeted at a pretty limited audience - kids under 13. A story about a lethal fire more than a century ago and many missing little girls since entrances the the stepsisters until they learn what it all means. A girl tries to drown herself but is saved. Doors fly open to alarming and loud music. Of course, the house is haunted, but only Molly and Heather are in the know and, also of course, they tell no adults. Heather is fragile, still recovering from the death of her mother, which she may have accidentally caused. The fact that Dave's own traumatized young daughter, Heather (Isabele Nelisse), is picked up from an institution to join them at the house is another reminder that eerie things lie ahead. She and her family - her younger brother Michael and Mom's new husband Dave ( Callum Keith Rennie) - move into a big old former church (complete with cross) in the middle of nowhere, which dark music warns us is a perfect spot for horror.

It seems as if psychiatrists and sleep medication have played roles in her life since her father's suicide and she has retreated into isolation to cope with her heartbreak. Yes, she rolls her eyes when her mother ( Maria Bello) makes a misstep but she isn't a bad kid. She thinks about life and writes thoughtfully in a diary.

Molly ( Sophie Nelisse), who is 14, is a traumatized person of substance. Mix teenage angst and horror and you get WAIT TILL HELEN COMES.

Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn