Bless the Child

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bless the Child
Bless the Child film poster
Directed by	Chuck Russell
Produced by	Mace Neufeld
Written by	Cathy Cash Spellman
Starring	Kim Basinger, Angela Bettis, Christina Ricci, Holliston Coleman
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures (USA) Icon Entertainment (non-USA)
Release date(s)	11 August 2000
Running time	107 minutes
Language	English
Budget	~ US$40,000,000
IMDb profile

For the Nightwish song, see Bless the Child (song).

Bless the Child is a 2000 thriller/horror film directed by Chuck Russell. It is based on a novel written by Cathy Cash Spellman.

Tagline: Mankind's last hope just turned six.

1 Plot summary
2 Trivia
- 2.1 Selected distributors
3 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story begins with Maggie O'Connor (played by Kim Basinger) a New York nurse meeting her sister Jenna (Angela Bettis) and Jenna's autistic daughter Cody (Holliston Coleman), who is merely days old when we're first introduced to her, at Maggie's apartment. This was somewhat of a surprise, since Jenna, a drug addict, had been missing for a couple of years. When Maggie steps out of the room, Jenna disappears again, leaving Cody behind. Maggie decides to raise Cody on her own.

After six years, Cody is in a Roman Catholic school for autistic children. Jenna comes back, this time with her new husband Eric Stark (Rufus Sewell), and they abduct Cody. FBI agent John Travis (Jimmy Smits) is already investigating several cases of missing children who were all born on the same date, and starts an investigation of this abduction as well when he realise that Cody has the same birth date as the other missing children. Meanwhile, Cody has begun to manifest strange powers, such as causing stationary objects to spin, and at one point she also brings a bird back to life, much to the her class-mates' fascination.

The abduction of young Cody was more than just a mother wanting her child back. Her husband Eric is the head of "New Dawn," a cult which is trying to find a special child born on December 16th, 1993 -- the same day as the return of the Bethlehem star 2000 years ago. Maggie meets Cheri Post (Christina Ricci), a member of the cult who wanted out, but was instead almost killed with a drug overdose by the cult members. Cheri informs Maggie that New Dawn is a cult of Satan worship, and that they plan on using Cody's powers for the dark side, and if they can't turn her, then they will sacrifice her. Cheri is soon punished for leaking information, and is chased down and decapitated.

Eventually, a satanic ritual is to take place, in order to make Cody join the dark side. Maggie and agent Travis come to rescue her. As the place is burning, Agent Travis shoots and kills Eric, while heavenly beings protect Cody. Maggie sacrifices her own life when saving Cody from being shot. Maggie is brought back to life by God's powers working through Cody.

[edit] Trivia

The bridge where the car "accident" takes place is actually the Blue Water Bridge between Sarnia, Ontario and Port Huron, Michigan. It was being "twinned" at the time so the whole bridge was closed down for repairs and was available for numerous re-takes. The scenery shots of NYC were then placed in the background, although people who grew up there recognize the shores as being Sarnia and Pt. Huron, respectively, not NYC.

In the original script, a character is deliberately pushed off a subway platform. This had to be changed to an accidental fall before the Toronto Transit Commission would allow filming on its property.

When the candles in the cathedral ignite together, the camera pulls back and Maggie's shirt can be seen blowing, as if the candles were in fact being blown out, and film was run backwards.

The line "the devil's greatest trick was convincing man that he didn't exist" has also been used, with slight variations in End of Days (1999), and more famously in The Usual Suspects (1995). It is originally from a short story by the French poet Charles Baudelaire.

The subway station where the attack on Meg takes place is a "ghost" station on the Toronto subway that is used frequently as a stand in for New York subways. The city's film office wanted to leave it set up as a NYC station but the Toronto fire department nixed that idea. The station is below the Bay station on the Bloor line, on the track connecting the Bloor and Yonge lines. At one time trains went from one line to the other - thus the station - but the practice was discontinued because of switching problems. (There is also a "ghost" station beneath the Queen Street station. It was roughed in 1954 for a planned Queen Street subway which never was built.)