The New Daughter

THE NEW DAUGHTER

A 2009 film that was based on a short story, The New Daughter begins as a realistic drama about a family of three (father John, teen daughter Louisa, and seven-year-old son Sam) relocating to a new house after the mom abandons them to be with her lover.  The house comes with a sprawling back yard that includes an ancient Indian burial mound.  Louisa spends increasing amounts of time outdoors and disobeys her father’s directive to be inside before dark.  John befriends and sort of dates Cassandra, a teacher from his kids’ school.  John discovers that his new land may have a dodgy history, and he leaves the children in the care of a babysitter one evening while he tracks down the previous owner, who spouts some exposition that I’ll leave out of this summary so as not to spoil the tale for any who want to sit through it.  Meanwhile, the babysitter gets locked out of the house, and something kills her (the body later turns up in the Indian burial mound).  A professor and his teaching assistant, drawn by photographs of the burial mound, show up and spew even more exposition.  The police investigate John, who takes it upon himself in the final sequence to tunnel into and presumably below the burial mound, where it turns out monsters lurk.  John attempts to destroy the creatures and their lair with fire, but a deliciously dark final image suggests that he apparently failed.

That final moment was one of the highlights of The New Daughter for me, but I can’t say it’s worth watching the whole film just to get there.  The project is well-acted and looks great in terms of cinematography and direction, but the story itself becomes increasingly unrealistic, and the ultimate revelation about the monsters living in and under the burial mound is plain silly.  Hats off for attempting an original horror project, but this one didn’t do much for me.