I enjoyed Bless The Child, and the good performance of Kim Basinger, but when all was said and done, I could not help dwelling on the films shortcomings, fallacies and holes.

1 Length. At 1hr 38mins, it is a good 35 minutes shorter than the average film nowadays, and this, while making it a shorter (and therefore more palatable...???logic???) for the punters, the film was unable to do justice to the themes and characters it created.

2 The common fallacy among films that deal with themes of world domination and conquest. Why America, and more specifically, why New York? Why was the child born in America, and why was the bad guy looking in New York for it? Surely if (as the casting implies) the child is the product of the stereotypical inbred mutant hicks (complete with red hair and feckles a la "Carrie", 1976...also "The Gift", 2000) of Southern US, then why New York and not Smallsville Texas? These kind of issues are completely ignored, and indeed MUST be in a film this short.

3 Bad guy. It is either an amazing co-incidence that he found and married the mother, or there was some force that brought her to him. Does he marry all drugged out homeless people? Or does he think the best place to look for mothers of children born on the special date is in rehab centres? Again, undealt with. Does he have supernatural powers or not? How come he can cast a spell to make a guy want to commit suicide, and yet can be simply killed with a few lead pellets? Earlier in the movie he manages to magic the bullets out of Kim's gun - why couldn't he do it with the FBI guy? Surely a supernatural guy deserves a supernatural death.

4 - What of the nuns? How do they know that Kim is on her way with the child? We never see her tell them she is on her way. Also the obligatory FBI agent - when he is told that "they have got Cody", he seems to know that Cody has been rescued and her recapture is news to him, yet he is never told in the first place. When the nuns pray, are we to assume that because there are more of them, God is more likely to hear them, and give a quantitative response? If they hadn't prayed, would God have just sat back and watched as his new messiah got diced? If not, then why have the nun-praying scene when there are so many holes undealt with?

5 - What of this mysterious Christian anti-occult cult led by Ian Holm? Why don't they have superpowers like the occult guys? All they do is get a young guy to drive a car for Kim, and then he dies before the getaway. Why can't they become angels for a second, like the demon granny does? That would have been cool. This sub-plot came accross as just the lets-explain-some-of-the-rules part of the film, which should have come in much earlier. Then again, they don't stick to their own rules, so I guess it doesnt really matter.

It is my guess that the film was an adaptation of a book (these often make too many assumptions) and that there was some psycho reel cutter in the editing room who had "shorter is better, shorter is better" going round in his head. The way I felt about the film was this: nice dress rehearsal - when are you going to make the film?

6/10 - hordes of unused potential

The devil resides in New York City and from the moment this film begins, we see exactly where this film is going. As the opening credits roll, its wonderful atmospheric start with its close-up night time shots of New York's gargoyles brings back memories of the great vampire movie Queen of the Damned (2002) and its visual introduction to its narrative.

With the arrival of The Star of Yacov, better known as The Christmas Star, once more in some two thousand years, we see childless Maggie O'Connor (Kim Basinger) taking on her younger sisters new born baby Cody, as Cody is dumped on her door step, this elder sister, this wise mature woman and now surrogate mother takes on full responsibility. Myth has it too that Saint Margaret the Virgin is known to be the Patron Saint of Pregnancy, and who, as legend would have it, was brought up by a nurse after her father disowned her, and having once met with the devil, with him in the form of a dragon. Irony and coincidence perhaps for both, considering her name being Maggie and her inability to have children and baby Cody's circumstance.

Dealing with this child and her seemingly autistic state, autism being a condition that is caused by a disorder that prevents the brain developing properly, this in turn can impair interaction both socially and emotionally. It isn't until she reaches six years of age that Maggie's worries slowly turn into fears of what exactly is wrong with this exceptional child. There are more than just physical and mental states at play here that are more than concerning and enlightening. Maggie's doubts and fears are soon to be tested, to and far beyond the boundaries of human restraint.

Bless the Child uses fables and myth to bring old legends to contemporary settings. With the killing of the innocent children to flush out the Prophecy, the way in which we see this being done is very subtle and coaxing, if a little disturbing, bringing an uncomfortable reality that something sinister, something malevolent, something lurking in the shadows and something extremely evil is all to ready to pounce. Here lies the winning formula, the evil that we see is not so much dark forces of the underworld, but be warned, they exist here too, it is more the evil of man and his willingness to be lead and be controlled by them. Man against man, sin against morality and the age-old battle of Light against the Darkness. We see Eric Stark and his followers taking parallel lines in the similar vain as the real life Satan and occult master Aleister "The Beast" Crowley (1875 - 1947), founder of The Golden Dawn, and once labelled "The Wickedest Man in the World". With Eric Stark renaming his cult The New Dawn Foundation, it is he who most certainly carries this trade of old evils and new Beasts to a tee. English born Rufus Sewell plays Stark with convincing zeal, with both phoney exterior compassion and charm to literally devil-may-care cold indifference, intermingling both persona's well enough to know that we are dealing with more than just the basic human traits that we see, hear and deal with in life. Evil, as it seems holds no bounds.

Kim Basinger and Holliston Coleman (born 1992) bond very well, and a great performance as surrogate mother, she plays her role with devotion and with an honest and convincing feel. With just three years after winning her Best Actress in a Supporting Role for L.A. Confidential, this isn't Ms. Basinger going down a peg but raising the stakes in this thriller horror movie genre. Her integrity is most certainly kept in tact, and this is with the assistance of one Chuck Russell, director of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), The Blob (1988), The Mask (1994) and The Scorpion King (2002). A fine team they make, and as with the gelling of the two leading ladies, it is his fine work in crafting young Holliston Coleman to a standard of high-end child acting. Expect to see more of this young girl. Especially, if she were to take the good advice from the ever professional and independently versatile actress Christina Ricci as the heroin addict Cheri Post, which is always a pleasure to see her working.

Bless the child also has its own parallels too, and lends itself to the likes of The Omen (1976), The Exorcist (1973) and the 1968 Roman Polanski film Rosemary's Baby, where we see children as axis of evils', Bless the Child sees the innocence and purity that is The Child; untainted and undemanding. Thus bearing the special gift of Life and the blessing of Divinity, sometimes disturbing, but slight, and at times touching, but never over demanding and horrific, which sets this movie of as being different and a little unique.

With moderate violence and with the help of a little CGI, a script that fights its own ground when in the amphitheatres of right and wrong, excellent and well cast, we can then be assured that Bless the Child most certainly has not been cursed.

Maggie( Kim Basinger) is a lonely woman without a family and on one rainy day, she suddenly finds her sister jenna( Angela Bettis) who she hasn't seen in two years at her doorstep with a baby. Jenna is to worn out and can't lay off the drugs she's been using so she runs away and leaves Maggie with her baby. As slowly the years pass by, it seems that cody (Holliston Coleman) suffers from some kind of autism. Her disorder is hard to explain but it is bluntly obvious that Cody isn't like ordinary children. Meanwhile, in the neighbourhood are some horrible murders going around. Kids are being found dead in a gruesome ritual where they all have the same satanic symbol burned on their bodys. No one can explain who is doing this but when Cody becomes a target for these murders, Maggie will do anything to save her niece. I enjoyed this movie, i think the acting was very good, especially by Kim Basinger and Angela Bettis. My favorite actress Christina Ricci had only a very small part in this movie but I still enjoyed seeing her. I would give Bless The Child 8/10