A solid enough horror from Friedkin but he is let down by some rather mundane performances and general lack of charisma. Jenny Seagrove is the exception here, not someone who I know much of, apart from her relationship with the late Michael Winner, but she is very strong here. Indeed, the only actor who is consistently believable throughout. She does well as the sweet girl who may not be so sweet, deals well with the nudity and lets it all hang out in the tumultuous finale. Overall though the film lapses occasionally into silliness now and again and this detracts from the fact that it is an original film that tries to do something different and if it is not quite as disturbing as it wants to be, it certainly contains plenty of gore and violence.

Somewhat creepy horror movie with a supernatural edge to it, kind of a more horror oriented "Hand that Rocks the Cradle". Basically, a couple with their first child hires a nanny with a very dark and disturbing secret. She has chosen this baby for a reason and it is not to simply make it hers. As far as horror movies it is somewhat good, it has some gore, a couple of tense scenes and some nudity. However, if you watch the cut version of this movie the whole thing changes to the point almost all the scares and creepy stuff is taken out. They seem to completely edit over the first scene involving the baby taken to the tree, a scene later with the mother makes it out that the child survived and is safe and sound. The regular version is not so chipper. The ending is screwed up to as it ends earlier and they basically cut out the final scene. I realize that you want to cut out some stuff so you can show your movie on the happy time family network, but in the end you should not edit a movie to the point its plot and meaning change. So for an okay horror movie with some creepy scenes and such give this movie a shot, for a pedestrian movie with basically no scares and all creepiness removed try and find the cut version of the film.

This movie was lacking in both suspense and b movie fun. I saw this on a rented VHS in early 90s. There's just nothing really scary about the tree. Even worse is that a great director like Friedkin (the exorcist, bug, killer Joe, rules of engagement, the French connection). can't bring any tension from anything but quite a bit of nudity and some extremely gory scenes. I hated this movie. Not only is it a chore to sit through with the tedious pace, its inexplicably stupid as well. We are given no proper explanation as to why all these events are transpiring, nor do they bother to tell us why a damn tree is wreaking all this havoc. We also get no proper character development. I think a nanny bathing with a baby naked would be questionable. This movie contained such annoying nonsense. The movie has Carey Lowell (licence to kill). Dwier Brown (the house 1 n 2, red dragon). Jenny Seagrove. Miguel Ferrer (iron man 3, Robocop, night flier).