The heroine of this film is in a lot of danger in a house of her worst nightmares. And she's only 11. An original chiller with not a drop of blood, Paperhouse is about a schoolgirl who draws a house and finds herself going to it in her dreams. When she draws a face at a window, it becomes a boy, trapped in the house and unable to walk, whom the girl realises, as she is taken to bed with glandular fever, is just like the boy her doctor is treating for muscular dystrophy. But there is more danger around, from a figure familiar in her life, than just the fight for the boy's survival. Fascinating stuff, directed with many a frisson by Bernard Rose, who conjures up just the kind of world one might imagine in a fever, and grips our attention almost throughout. One could have done with a more natural child actress, though, than young Charlotte Burke who, though visually interesting in her interpretation of emotions, is less convincing once she opens her mouth. Rose employs the interesting device of giving the story two or three false endings before finishing on an unexpected upbeat note.


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