The 1973 film The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, directed by Nicolas Gessner, stars a shockingly young Jodie Foster (released the same year as Taxi Driver). The film was categorized as "horror," though the dead bodies in the cellar don't quite add up to that conclusion. It's much more a thriller. Though I wasn't "scared" in the traditional sense, I was thoroughly frightened by Martin Sheen's character's threats to the "little girl," thirteen years old, with "such pretty hair." What a creep! This has meaning not only as the warning of the evil side of living alone as a child - that protecting yourself becomes a daily task, particularly when a pedophile lives nearby, whose mother "owns" the village. The further significance lies in the uncomfortable sexualization of such a young person; Jodie Foster just debuted as a fourteen-year-old prostitute that Robert DeNiro falls complicatedly in love with - is he a father figure, or a lover? Can he say for sure? Similarly this film frightens with the older man's perverse desire for Rynn, but glorifies the young, awkward sexuality Rynn shares with Mario. So it's okay, simply because the guy is only a couple years older? Like I said, uncomfortable. However, it's a sweet, strange film. I dig it.
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