The Whispering is almost one of those, but never quite makes the necessary leap. It’s uninvolvingly directed and slow moving. To its credit, it does have the intriguing central idea of a mystery woman who is akin to some angel of suicide. And in the middle, even though the scene is a cliché and never tied to anything else in the plot, there is an absorbing scene where Leif Garrett is hypnotized and unexpectedly returns to a past life. Later there is another subtly effective scene where Leif Garrett sees the mystery woman trying to tempt a grieving relative into jumping off a cliff. In these two scenes, director Gregory Gieras demonstrates some capacity for atmosphere, but thereafter the film lapses. The climactic scenes involving imminent gas explosions and a ghost girl are routinely handled.

There is a solid and convincing performance from Tom Patton. Even former 1970s teen heartthrob Leif Garrett, who these days has been eking out a living in B movies, isn’t too bad.

Director Gregory Gieras had previously made the tv movie adaptation of the fairytale The Tin Soldier (1995) and subsequently went onto make Little Insects (2000), the entertaining escaped maniac film Dark Asylum (2001) and the monster movie Centipede! (2004). He also wrote the script for Dark Island (2010).