The Bennetts, college rofessor Miles (Edward Bell) and his wife Sheri (Sharon Farrell) have raised an adoptive girl (Danielle Brisebois) from infancy. Sheri is the only mommy little Janie has ever known. Her biological mother, however, wants her back, having Janie stripped from her when she was committed to a mental institute.

At the asylum, Andrea (Ellen Barber), Janie's mother, met Jude ( Richard Lynch), who carries a torch for Andrea and has been searching for the little girl since his release from the asylum. As a carnival clown, Jude covers a lot of ground, and he reaches out to Andrea, shortly after her release, when he finally locates the girl. They plan to kidnap Janie, but when their plan backfires, Andrea regresses tremendously, treating a plastic doll like her own child, which ignites Jude's violent temper.

STORY $$$$: The title of the film comes from the link Sheri and Andrea share as mothers to Janie. Andrea has the unique ability of telepathy, and constantly torments Sheri with unsettling images. Sheri's husband reaches out to a parapsychologist (Chitra Neogy) in his department, who he has a schoolboy crush on, and she assists the Bennetts in overcoming Andrea's nightmarish influence. The story will keep your interest with the occasional twist and bump in the night. As for Andrea's mental instability, the police investigator (Jeff Corey) learns that she, a classically trained pianist, was institutionalized for playing a concert nude. If that's all it took to get thrust in a padded cell, 90% of today's female popstars would be right there with Andrea!

ACTING $$$: The acting is generally solid all around, with Farrell and Barber standing out. I'd match Sharon Farrell with any actress in history when it comes to conveying anguish and despair. She wears a woebegone appearance second to none. Ellen Barber, an unknown to me, gave quite a captivating performance, expertly pulling off a complicated role in Andrea. She's at times vulnerable, and volatile at others, and Ellen never crosses that line into overacting. Richard Lynch, whose resume for villains can be exhausting, is terrific as Jude, who wants to love Andrea but is tormented by her instability. I never thought Lynch got the credit he deserved as an actor, for most people seem to remember his appearance as a burn victim more than his obvious skills as a thespian.

SEX/NUDITY: None.

"The Premonition" follows a mother who begins experiencing bizarre visions after her daughter's biological mother (who is clinically insane) tracks them down, along with the help of her unstable circus clown boyfriend.

Released in 1976, this supernatural thriller is something of the progenitor of the modern supernatural-themed horror/thriller films of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Though branded as a horror film, my impression of this film is that it's perhaps more of a thriller with added melodrama. Shot in the southern U.S., the film has a dreary and almost dreamlike sensibility, and does boast some rather frightening nightmare sequences in which the mother (played by Sharon Farrell) has disturbing premonitory visions.

The main fault of "The Premonition" is the way in which the supernatural element is shoehorned into the plot; we never really get a solid explanation as to why these visions manifest, and Farrell's character's husband is conveniently a professor whose colleague studies the supernatural. This quasi-scientific side of the film is a bit dull (and perhaps inspired by "The Exorcist"), whereas the plot involving the child's insane biological mother and boyfriend (the latter played nefariously by Richard Lynch)--and their pursuit of the girl--is much more intriguing.

The film concludes with a rather grand sequence that seems a bit absurd, but Farrell and the other performers all commit to the material, rendering it passable. All in all, "The Premonition" is a fairly well-made supernatural thriller, though one that is not entirely the sum of its parts. The film does steep itself in too much melodrama for its own good at times, but in the end, there is enough dreamlike atmosphere and intrigue to keep the audience committed until the end. 6/10.

A foster mother has The Premonition: her new daughter's unstable biological mother is going to come and take her away. It comes true, so what happens next? PS - it's beyond the power of an exorcist in only the way that an exploitation movie poster can promise.

Originally re-released as part of Arrow Video's American Horror Project, this film was once titled Turtle Heaven. I watched this movie because of the always dependable Richard Lynch (Bad Dreams, Invasion U.S.A.), who plays the carnival clown boyfriend of Andrea, whose daughter Janie (Danielle Brisebois, TV's Archie Bunker's Place) has been adopted by the Bennett family. Oh yeah - Jeff Corey (who would go from being blacklisted to becoming the premier acting coach in Hollywood) shows up as a cop.

Two mothers - connected by the young girl they love and see as their child, as well as a psychic bond - go to war. That's my best explanation of this very 1970's film. But back to Richard Lynch - did you know how he got his scarred looking appearance? The hard way. In 1967, high on drugs, he set himself on fire in Central Park, burning more than 70% of his body. But after a year of recovery, he started to act.