Byline: Jim Murphy

IN THE wake of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle comes the inevitable telemovie about a disturbed nanny, but Colin Bucksey's suspense thriller Midnight's Child (PG, RocVale) goes more for the supernatural approach _ something resembling Rosemary's Babysitter Meets the Omenette. As with many American TV movies, it is padded out beyond its warrantable length and it cannot, because of censorship restrictions, be as scary as perhaps its makers would have liked, but for all that Midnight's Child works quite effectively. In the opening scenes, we see a schoolgirl murdered in Stockholm and the killer assume her identity. Next, Californian suburbanites Kate and Nick Cowan (Marcy Walker and Cotter Smith) are welcoming their Swedish au pair, whom they believe to be Anna but who is, we know, the murdering Kirsten. After a bad beginning, she proves to be remarkably efficient looking after the house and child, but soon Kate starts to realise that her role as mother and wife is being usurped by this demure girl (whom we know to be a daughter of Satan). David Chaskin's script takes an inordinate time to get to the nitty- gritty of the story, and I could have lived without the frequent black-and-white flashes of Anna/Kirsten's "true" self, but Olivia d'Abo gives a suitably sinister performance as the au pair and little Elissabeth Moss is excellent as Christine, the Cowans' daughter who is the object of her malevolent mission, which centres on the child's approaching eighth birthday. More Tales from the Darkside (M, RocVale) is...