Director: Steve Pullen
Writer: Steve Pullen
Starring: Steve Pullen, Isabella Pullen, Deena Dill
Country: USA
Running Time: 101 mins
Year: 2017
BBFC Certificate: 15

101 Films have let The Ballerina out of the swamp to haunt us, hitting us square between the eyes with this sleep deprived ghostly twister.

Sophia Sorenson (Isabella Pullen) and her dad, Glenn (Steve Pullen) have hit on hard times and are forced to sleep in a tent by night, but poor little Sophia does not sleep as her dreams are terrorised in their freezing tent home by supernatural spectres. In the day they steal eggs from the local farms to feed themselves in a gruelling battle for survival, while dad drinks whisky to try to get by. A new homeless woman Doe Peterson (Deena Dill) and her sons arrive at the tented city in the swamp and Glenn offers to help them settle into their tent.

That night back in their tent Sophia is haunted yet again by shadowy figures roaming outside the tent. In the morning Sophia is distraught by the way they are living and begs her dad to take her to see their old house. They walk for hours to visit their old home, sadly someone else is living there now and the sight of her lovely house reduces Sophia to tears, in a heart wrenching moment, she cries that she never wants to see her old house again. They walk for hours back to the tented city they have come to call home and help Doe and her two sons set up their new tent home.

That night Sophia sees a badly mutilated girl but no one else can see her. We start to find out what has caused this dreadful situation, we discover that dad is on the run from social services after the family suffered horrific trauma and dad turned to drink, they try to split up father and daughter. After another night of being tormented by visions, Sophia’s dad is at his wits end and agrees to let his new lady friend hypnotise his daughter to try to rid her of the ghostly nightmares. Dad thinks Sophia has been cured of seeing her imaginary ghosts, but that night they strike again.

This time a priest is called to rid Sophia of her demons, he carries out an exorcism in an attempt to banish the ghouls. That night dad tries to outwit the ghosts by staying up all night so he can confront the evil apparitions himself, but the phantasms outwit him and manage to give Sophia a locket. Dad doesn’t give up and enlists the help of a medium to try to work out what is going on. In a swirl of echoing voices the apparitions of six girls are conjured up. The medium asks “Why are you so sad, what happened”, we find out their fate and bit by bit the true horror is revealed. The medium chilling announces to Glenn “Be careful, don’t leave her alone with them”.

The Ballerina is a highly enjoyable ghost story with first rate acting and cinematography with a plethera of twists to keep you guessing.

101 Films release Steven Pullen’s The Ballerina on DVD and digital download on the 5th February, the DVD I reviewed was of superlative visual and sound quality and did not contain any extras, but that’s not a big deal as it’s a great film.

The Ballerina
4.0Overall Score
Reader Rating: (20 Votes)

About The Author

Lives in a Dark Place on the edge of Sanity with his tormented family, chickens, cat and dead Tom.

2 Responses

  1. shawna

    Oh come on, this has got to be one of the worst films I’ve ever seen and truth be told, I could only stomach 20 mins of this garbage

    Reply
  2. tim Harris

    This was great movie, a real tear jerker with somewhat a good ending, however, it was hard for me to follow the timeline. It bounces back and forth between the spirit reality and the “real” reality, as far as the sequence that it happened

    Reply

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