the little girl who lives down the lane

Director: nicolas gessner

Actor: jodie foster,martin sheen,alexis smith,mort shuman

Data Published: Sat Dec 25 1976

Genres: Drama,Horror,Mystery,Thriller

Key Words: child murderer,killing a pet,murder of a woman,cake,teenage romance

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074806/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Girl_Who_Lives_Down_the_Lane

Description: The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane is a movie starring Jodie Foster, Martin Sheen, and Alexis Smith. 13-year-old Rynn Jacobs lives alone in a high-class Quebec small town, but unknown to the neighbors, she is leading a secret...

Plot: On Halloween in the seaside town of Wells Harbor, Maine, Rynn Jacobs is celebrating her thirteenth birthday alone in her father Lester's house. Lester was a poet and the two recently moved from England, where he leased the house for three years. Frank Hallet, the adult son of landlord Cora Hallet, visits and makes sexual advances toward Rynn. Cora Hallet later arrives at the house, searching for Rynn's father. Rynn claims he is in New York and taunts the landlord about her son. The situation becomes more tense when Mrs. Hallet insists on retrieving her jelly glasses from the cellar. Rynn steadfastly refuses to let her in the cellar, and Mrs. Hallet leaves. She returns later, and, ignoring Rynn's warnings, opens the trapdoor to go into the cellar. Suddenly terrified by something she sees, Mrs. Hallet attempts to flee, but accidentally knocks down the cellar door support, fatally hitting her head on the door. Trying to hide evidence of Mrs. Hallet's visit, Rynn goes outside to move her car. Her inability to start it attracts the attention of Mario, a young magician and the nephew of Officer Miglioriti. Mario helps her move the car, and they have dinner together at Rynn's house. Miglioriti stops by to tell them that Frank Hallet has reported his mother missing, and asks to see Rynn's father, but Mario covers by saying that her father has gone to bed. Later that night, Frank Hallet makes a surprise visit. Suspicious, and looking for answers about the whereabouts of his mother and Rynn's father, he tries to scare Rynn into talking by killing her pet hamster. Mario chases Frank away, and Rynn now trusts him enough to show him her secret. Her terminally ill father and abusive mother divorced long ago. To protect Rynn from being returned to her mother's custody after his death, he moved them to an isolated area and made plans to allow Rynn to live alone, then committed suicide in the ocean so his body would not be found. He also left Rynn with a jar of potassium cyanide, telling her that it was a sedative, to give to her mother if she ever came for her. Rynn coolly recounts how she put the powder in her mother's tea and watched her die. She learned embalming at the library in order to hide the body in the cellar. The trust between Rynn and Mario blossoms into romance. They bury the corpses in the garden during a heavy rain, and Mario catches a cold. Miglioriti, suspicious of Rynn's excuses for her father's absence, again returns to the house. When he asks to see her father, Mario, disguised as an old man, comes down the stairs and introduces himself as Lester Jacobs. After winter sets in, Rynn learns that Mario's cold has developed into pneumonia and he is in the hospital. Rynn goes to see him, but he is unconscious, and she feels lonelier than ever before. That night, as Rynn is going to bed, she is shocked to find Frank coming out of the cellar. Having put the pieces together and knowing the truth about Rynn's parents, he attempts to blackmail her, offering to protect her secrets in exchange for sexual favours. Rynn, seemingly defeated and resigned to Frank's demands, agrees to his suggestion that they have a cup of tea. Rynn places a dose of the potassium cyanide into her own cup and then takes the tea and almond cookies to the living room. A suspicious Frank switches his cup with hers, and Rynn watches on as he begins to succumb to the poison.