Yet, whether this approach to parenting is ultimately a good thing is very much up for debate. Molly, Heather and Michael (Liam Dickinson) are given carte blanche by their distracted parents to run about the countryside unsupervised in what feels very much a throwback to the days when children weren’t scheduled to within an inch of their lives with parental approved activities. While the children in this film receive a tremendous amount of agency, the parents are present-at least in body. In far too many films, horror and otherwise, children and teens often seem to exist in a world in which no adult is seemingly ever present. One of the more interesting subtexts to the film is the line between neglect and agency.

Following a series of bizarre events, Molly realizes that Helen is actually real and is harboring a sinister plan involving Heather.Ĭheck out the trailer for Wait Till Helen Comes: While the eldest daughter Molly (Sophie Nélisse) suffers from nightmares, her younger troublesome step-sister, Heather (Isabelle Nélisse), begins to spend her time in the ruined remains of a nearby home playing with her imaginary friend Helen (Abigail Pniowsky). The film centers on a newly blended family who decide to move to the countryside to renovate an old church that is coincidentally situated next to a decrepit graveyard. It is slow moving and picturesque with a sensibility that is more implied horror. Wait Till Helen Comes does the complete opposite.

For example, the moment when the witches peel off their human masks in The Witches (1990) or when the maggot covered meat is revealed in Poltergeist (1982). While there have been some exceptions, most notably the brilliant Lady in White(1998), horror films marketed toward younger teens have often relied upon jump scares and gross out shock scenes to move the plot. Drawing heavily from its source material, Mary Dowling Hahn’s 1986 YA classic of the same name, the film deserves credit for trusting its audience to follow a somewhat complicated narrative structure. Despite themes ranging from suicide to mental illness, Wait Till Helen Comes is ostensibly a horror film geared toward the PG set.

Wait till helen comes home