A Whisper in the Dark [DVD] [1976]

A mother discovers a horrifying secret about her young son's imaginary friend in this gothic shocker based on Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and directed by the late Marcello Aliprandi. Twelve-year-old Martino may as well live alone at his family's sprawling Venetian villa. Largely ignored by his wealthy, self-absorbed parents and left with few playmates with whom to pass the day, Martino soon falls under the spell of an imaginary friend named Luca. When Martino's mother begins to investigate her son's increasingly hostile invisible playmate, a revelation about her past leads her to believe that Luca may in fact be the vengeful spirit of the child she lost before Martino was born.