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Catherine (Francesca Annis) moves back to the mansion of her deceased
parents with her husband Arthur (James Bolam) and their daughter Daisy
(Sky Macaskill), and Daisy soon starts playing in the maze in the house's
garden, a place her mother has less than fond memories of. Eventually,
Daisy starts to talk about a man she frequently meets in the maze,
something that immediately triggers memories in Catherine about Fred
(Duncan Prseton), her parents' gardener who died on the exact day Daisy
was born. Before long it turns out that the man Daisy meets in the maze is
the ghost of Fred who wants to bid Catherine farewell, and it turns out
that Fred is actually the father of Daisy too, conceived in the very maze
she is playing in now. In the end, Catherine and family sell her
parental mansion and move somewhere else, since she has finally come to
terms with her past. A very disappointing episode of Shades
of Darkness that gives away its game pretty much in the first five
minutes, then tells nothing much in the following 45 minutes before coming
to a disappointing ending. Such a narrative structure might work in
writing of course (and I admit to having not read the story this is based
on), it just doesn't work on the screen. Also, the whole thing is rather
disappointing on a visual level, pretty much totally neglecting the maze
so central to the story that could have been visually compelling for your
typical mansion and garden-sets seen in way too many British ghost
stories as it is. A disappointment.
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