Audrey Rose is a thinking mans horror film, which in a way is unfortunate, since it tended to be ignored amidst the many spell-it-all-out scarefests of the late 1970s. Marsha Mason and John Beck play Janice and Bill Templeton, a happily married couple, the parents of well-adjusted preteen Ivy (Susan Swift). Their family security is disrupted by the arrival of mysterious stranger, Elliott Hoover (Anthony Hopkins). At first mistaken for a potential child molester, Hoover explains that his obsessive interest in young Ivy is actually paternal. It is Hoovers contention that their daughter is the reincarnation of his own child, who died in a horrible accident. This information is dismissed out of hand-and then strange things begin happening. The films ending manages to be both happy and tragic all in one. Directed with the same admirable restraint with which Robert Wise imbued his previous psychological thriller The Haunting, Audrey Rose, was adapted by coproducer Frank De Felitta from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide