Apprentice to Murder

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Min./New World Video & HOT International a.s. & Cosmosis & K/S LLF Productions A/S/Rated PG-13</div> <bR> <div> Director.........R.L. Thomas (The Terry Fox Story, Ticket to Heaven)</div> <div> Screenplay.......Allan Scott & Wesley Moore</div> <div> Music............Charles Gross</div> <div> Producer.........Howard K. Grossman</div> <div> Executive Producer....Michael Ray Rauch</div> <div> Special Effects by Meddings Magic Camera Company, Ltd. </div> <bR> <div> Dramatis Personae*</div> <bR> <div> Billy Kelly.....Chad Lowe (Highway to Hell,Nobody's Perfect,Trueblood)</div> <div> Alice Spangler..Mia Sara (Call of the Wild, Ferris Bueller's Day Off)</div> <div> Clay Myers......Mark Burton</div> <div> Emma Kelly......Rutanya Alda* (Amityville II, The Dark Half)</div> <div> Tom Kelly.......Eddie Jones</div> <div> Lars Hoeglin....Knut Husebo</div> <div> Rufus...........Tiger Haynes</div> <div> Mama Isobel.....Minnie Gentry (Georgia, Georgia)</div> <div> Irwin Myers.....Adrian Sparks</div> <bR> <div> Critique: This film does a beautiful job of mixing John's, and indeed Billy's fantastic imaginings with the real world events. The conflict of the rational world with the world of superstition is nicely played. The acting is outstanding. It may be questionable whether this is really a horror movie, but John's entering of the "hexed" farm is as chilling a horror scene as one would want. There are a number of gripping scenes such as when Billy goes to Reese's room and sees the picture he had drawn, partially burned, with the picture of mad Lars on it. In spite of many strong points, there are occasional pace problems. The consequences of black men performing witchcraft on white people in Rufus' scene was poignant. The film claims to have been inspired by a true story.</div> <bR> <div> * Blood * Not Particularly Violent * No Strong Language * No Nudity *</div> <div> * Sexual Situations * Not Gory *</div> <bR> <div> Plot Summary: Pennsylvania 1927. A lad, Billy, out shooting rabbit is accosted by a crazed-eyed man, Lars Haugland, in the wood. Billy runs away but mother won't take the incident seriously. Billy later sneaks up to Lars' house and peers through the gaps in the sideboards. Mother explains that Lars went mad only after his mother committed suicide. Drunken father comes home and there's crying and blood. At the factory, Alice is a new girl who seems to have taken a shine to Billy. A dog foaming at the mouth scares people in front of the factory. Before it's about to be shot, the preacher comes and the dog immediately is calmed. The man with the gun shoots the dog anyway. Billy goes to the preacher with his face by a blow from his father. He admits that he is not certain as to whether the preacher had trained the dog. The preacher comes to ask about his father. Billy wants out of the town but feels he must stay to protect his mother while his father's drinking. Preacher John gives Billy a posy that will make his father sick when he drinks. In exchange, Billy who is quite an artist gives him a drawing he had made of the preacher. On the other side was the picture he had been drawing of Lars. When Billy leaves, John is strangely disturbed by the picture of Lars. Billy mixes the emetic into his father's pancake and it has the desired effect. Preacher John (Reese) mutters mantras in the dark. Billy shows up with some hexagrams that the preacher had him copy. Preacher pays Billy by "learnin" him to read. Billy has started following the preacher in his faith healing. The preacher says he's had a dream and that Billy should learn his gift of healing. Preacher John has been having visions. Alice thinks preacher John's a madman. She claims he was in an institution for four years. More and more Billy is pulled into Reese's sphere. Billy takes Alice to an abandoned house where they dance until they see Lars looking in the window which sends them running. Reese preaches that the evolutionists try to teach that God is powerless and calls this arrogance. When Billy gets up and reads a gospel, he is simply the talk of the town. Father has shown up at the service and everything is looking great. Unfortunately, a man whose daughter died while John tried faith healing has called in the authorities. A Marshall puts handcuffs on him as the father curses him. Reese is soon out with a warning not to practice medicine without a license. Alice wants them to go live in Philadelphia with the twenty two dollars that they'd saved. When he tells Reese, Reese gives him money to go with. Alice wants to get him away from preacher John who is having more and more seizures, making Alice concerned about his madness. The Meyers farm is stricken with a plague and Billy gets Reese to come and try to do something about it. Reese enters the house and he seems to see an image glowing red. He seems to fight with a demon within, coming out with his coat in tatters. He enters the barn and seems to be attacked by some sort of force. Later he lies in bed and claims to have seen the face of Satan. Billy believes that John is sick, but Alice thinks he is just pretending in order to keep him in the town. The delerious John bids them bring him to Philadelphia with them to get some medicine. They jump a boxcar and John chants among hexagrams. As they arrive in Philadelphia, Billy's father finds out what they've been putting in his food. They go to a black "pow wow" man who calls a cut that John has a "hex burn". They go off to find mamma Isabelle, leaving Alice to fend for herself in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, father stumbles home drunk again as mother looks on. As she leaves, he lights a cigarette and carelessly lets a match fall to the floor. John and Billy have gotten to mamma Isabelle and he convulses under a sheet that is spiked into the ground. She calls on the spirit of Cuyumba. Gunpowder in a receptacle flares indicating the spirit has been contacted. They deduce that the spirit attacking John is Lars. Lars is looking in the window as Billy's parents' house is burned. John tells Billy that Lars had had a feud with the Meyers: twenty years before cattle from the Meyers' farm had been knocking down fences in his brother's land. When the brother went with a gun to the Meyers' place, he ended up shot with his own gun. Lars believes with some justification that it was murder. John says the plague in the Meyers' house was set by Lars and that Billy's parents were killed because Billy went with John to help him. They go to get a lock of his hair but things go too far and the house burns while Clay, the idiot, looks on.</div> </td> </tr></table></body>