Ann Turner wrote and directed this genuinely creepy tale. Celia Carmichael (Rebecca Smart) is a lonely nine-year-old girl growing up in the Melbourne suburbs in the late 1950s. She is the victim of several traumas that led to horrific results, and she suffers from nightmares from a book read to her at school. For a spell, her troubles are abated when a new family moves in next door with three children for Celia to play with. But her parents forbid her to play with the children, because the parents are members of the Communist Party.