**SPOILER ALERT** Mind numbing and overly complicated murder mystery that has continued without a stop for some 18 years after young Hope Lavelle, Shae Kibbler, was mysteriously murdered back on August 23, 1989.
It's when Hope's friend Tory Bodeen, Claire Forlani, saw in a vision Hope being murdered in the woods without coming to her aid that she, not Hope's killer, was held responsible for Hope's death. This convoluted thinking had poor Tory suffer deep guilt feelings that eventually lead her to leave town, Progress S.C, and never return until she was 30! We already saw that Tory was abused by her drunken father Han, Shaun Johnston, when she was a little girl over her unique psychic ability to see things happening miles away and even through solid objects. Instead of feeling blessed by him having a daughter with such God-given abilities Han, a religious fanatic, took them to be the work of the Devil and brutally beat Tory every time she used them. like the time she was to go out in the woods to spend the night with her friend Hope which in fact would have prevented, by seeing or sensing Hope's killer before he struck, her from being murdered!
Despite of her having nothing at all to do with Hope's death Hope's mother Mrs. Margaret Lavelle, Jackie Bisset, has held Tory responsible for her daughters murder suspecting that she knows who the killer is and is keeping it from the authorities. While back in Progress Tory soon gets romantically involved with a old flame, from grade school, of her Cade, Oliver Hudson, who just happens to be the late Hope's brother! You can just imagine what Cade's mom, Mrs Lavelle, feels about that relationship.
As we soon find out Tory's drunken and now drug addicted dad Han had spent the last nine years behind bars and despite not being indited in Hope's murder everyone in town feel he's the one who murdered her! In fact since Hope's murder in 1989 every August 23rd a young girl, who would have been Hope's age, is murdered somewhere in the country under the very same circumstances that Hope was killed with Han being the #1 suspect in their murders. You would think if anyone, which is almost the entire town of Progress, suspected that Han was the notorious and on the loose "August 23rd Killer" how can they explain the last nine killings which at the time Han was behind bars and in no position to commit them!
The film "Carolina Moon" gets even more ridicules as it goes along with Tory now accused, by the very vindictive Mrs. Lavelle, of what seems like a series of murders, that in fact she prevented as a police psychic, in the New York and Miami areas. With the dreaded date of August 23, when the next murder is supposed to take place, just a few days away Han who's on the run after brutally beating his parole officer, who was to test him for drugs, ends up getting killed, with the cops hot on his tail, in a car crash. That's after he supposedly, off camera, murdered his wife Siri, Maureen Rooney, and definitely, since we all saw it happen on screen, robbed and beat up his estranged daughter Tory at her gift and antique shop, that she just opened, in Progress.
***SPOILERS***The ending was about as predictable as it can get with Han, despite his long criminal record, exonerated of Hope's murder by just being killed off with some 15 or more minutes left in the movie. You just knew that the real killer will eventually show up just to fill in the time left and surprise those of us watching the movie. Which in fact he did show up but didn't surprise anyone in who he was since, due to the process of elimination, you easily figured out identity! Which the very in-tuned and psychic Tory, until it was almost too late, couldn't!
It's when Hope's friend Tory Bodeen, Claire Forlani, saw in a vision Hope being murdered in the woods without coming to her aid that she, not Hope's killer, was held responsible for Hope's death. This convoluted thinking had poor Tory suffer deep guilt feelings that eventually lead her to leave town, Progress S.C, and never return until she was 30! We already saw that Tory was abused by her drunken father Han, Shaun Johnston, when she was a little girl over her unique psychic ability to see things happening miles away and even through solid objects. Instead of feeling blessed by him having a daughter with such God-given abilities Han, a religious fanatic, took them to be the work of the Devil and brutally beat Tory every time she used them. like the time she was to go out in the woods to spend the night with her friend Hope which in fact would have prevented, by seeing or sensing Hope's killer before he struck, her from being murdered!
Despite of her having nothing at all to do with Hope's death Hope's mother Mrs. Margaret Lavelle, Jackie Bisset, has held Tory responsible for her daughters murder suspecting that she knows who the killer is and is keeping it from the authorities. While back in Progress Tory soon gets romantically involved with a old flame, from grade school, of her Cade, Oliver Hudson, who just happens to be the late Hope's brother! You can just imagine what Cade's mom, Mrs Lavelle, feels about that relationship.
As we soon find out Tory's drunken and now drug addicted dad Han had spent the last nine years behind bars and despite not being indited in Hope's murder everyone in town feel he's the one who murdered her! In fact since Hope's murder in 1989 every August 23rd a young girl, who would have been Hope's age, is murdered somewhere in the country under the very same circumstances that Hope was killed with Han being the #1 suspect in their murders. You would think if anyone, which is almost the entire town of Progress, suspected that Han was the notorious and on the loose "August 23rd Killer" how can they explain the last nine killings which at the time Han was behind bars and in no position to commit them!
The film "Carolina Moon" gets even more ridicules as it goes along with Tory now accused, by the very vindictive Mrs. Lavelle, of what seems like a series of murders, that in fact she prevented as a police psychic, in the New York and Miami areas. With the dreaded date of August 23, when the next murder is supposed to take place, just a few days away Han who's on the run after brutally beating his parole officer, who was to test him for drugs, ends up getting killed, with the cops hot on his tail, in a car crash. That's after he supposedly, off camera, murdered his wife Siri, Maureen Rooney, and definitely, since we all saw it happen on screen, robbed and beat up his estranged daughter Tory at her gift and antique shop, that she just opened, in Progress.
***SPOILERS***The ending was about as predictable as it can get with Han, despite his long criminal record, exonerated of Hope's murder by just being killed off with some 15 or more minutes left in the movie. You just knew that the real killer will eventually show up just to fill in the time left and surprise those of us watching the movie. Which in fact he did show up but didn't surprise anyone in who he was since, due to the process of elimination, you easily figured out identity! Which the very in-tuned and psychic Tory, until it was almost too late, couldn't!