While Feardotcom and the remake of The House On Haunted Hill didn't exactly set the horror movie world on fire, William Malone has been quietly slugging away at project after project for decades now. Calling him a Master of Horror might be a stretch, but he's got a few decent projects under his belt including the underrated Alien rip-off Creature (starring Klaus Kinski) and an award winning episode of HBO's Tales From The Crypt.

When the story begins, we meet Tara (Lindsay Pulsipher), a cute but rather anti-social girl who is more interested in drawing fantasy characters than her math studies. When she leaves class and rides her bike home, she's blindsided by a van that knocks her onto the road. A man gets out, puts her in the back of the van, and when she wakes up she's in another state. The first person to talk to her when she wakes up is Judith (Lori Petty of Tank Girl) who at first appears to be a nurse but soon shows her true colors when she helps the man from the van, Anton (William Samples) – her husband, toss Tara down into the basement, the door swiftly locked behind her.

While exploring the unusually dusty subterranean level of the massive mansion where she's held captive, Tara finds a boy hanging from a noose. She frees him, and although he can't talk he writes his name in the dust – Johnny (Jesse Haddock). She and Johnny soon start hearing noises from a room, and then they notice the warnings scratched into the walls of the basement, phrases like 'escape now' and 'beware the fair haired child.' It would seem that Judith and Anton have done things like this before, though how many times before Tara can't say. It won't really matter soon enough, however, as she finds out that they don't intend for her to make it out of there alive anyway.

The first movie that will probably spring to mind for seasoned horror movie fans after the end credits hit the screen will be Pumpkinhead. Malone's feature plays with many of the same themes and shares some similarities in terms of the basic idea from which the scares, and the sympathy for certain characters, stem from.Thankfully, The Fair Haired Child branches out on its own enough that it doesn't feel like a rip-off, even if it is a little familiar. Much of the credit for this has to go to the stylish cinematography and truly eerie color schemes concocted for the basement where much of the film takes place. The movie proves to be quite atmospheric and rather creative with a few nice grisly touches and a strong, sensible ending. It's a well put together story despite a few too many flashbacks that feel like they're just there to pad out the running time a little bit, and those scenes aside, it's paced well.

As far as the performances go, Pulsipher is very good in the lead role. Although she's a little too pretty to really look like a nerd, she gets the nervous mannerisms down well and does a good job of pulling inside herself when taunted by her classmates in the opening scene. She also handles the more intense material that is thrown at her later in the movie – she gives us a good, well rounded performance. Likewise, Jesse Haddock does a good job with a virtually silent performance, emoting with his facial expressions and his body language effectively throughout. The weak links in the acting chain are with Lori Petty and William Samples. While neither of them are awful, they both ham it up just a little more than necessary in a couple of scenes, though to Petti's credit she certainly looks the part with her hair chopped down and her rather skeletal features. Neither of them really ruins anything, but there are moments where their performances will test your suspension of disbelief.

In the end, Malone succeeds with his entertaining entry. There's plenty of style, a nice and appropriately moody score and two very fine performances from a pair of teenagers that you probably wouldn't expect them from. While the scares aren't as bombastic as they could have been, there is a nice sense of forbodding and a few moments that are bound to make you jump.

Video:

The 1.77.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer presents the movie in its original aspect ratio and for the most part, as it's been for all of the discs in the series so far, the image looks very good and the picture is quite sharp throughout. There is some edge enhancement present in a few scenes this disc suffers from slightly more pronounced shimmering and aliasing in spots than the other releases have but there's very little to complain about otherwise. Black levels are strong and deep, there are no issues at all with print damage, dirt or debris on the picture and there's a very pleasing level of both foreground and background detail present throughout the picture even during the black and white flashback scenes. Skin tones look lifelike and natural and the reds and greens particularly those used in the gore scenes and at the very end of the movie, are well defined without bleeding through.