Fantastic!

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

The first must-see film of the year.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

I saw this on TV when I was about nine. I wasn't allowed to watch The Terminator when I was that age so all I knew Linda Hamilton from was Beauty and the Beast (This was before T2). It's kind of my archetype for what I think of as an 80's Disease of the Week TV movie and it was pretty effective. I think if I watched it now it would be a good indicator of how perceptions of the disease have changed. The moment that really got to me as a child was when the grandfather (I think it was Ned Beatty) was building a coffin in the garage while the kid was still alive. It was hard as nine year old to be confronted with my own mortality.

This is a very sad movie about a family dealing with a vicious killer. It is even sadder when the victim is a child. Ben struggles with this disease along with struggling to maintain his human dignity. Ben finally comes to grips with condition. It is hard to see his body deteriorate. This is sad documentation of the tragedy of AIDS. This cruel killer does not care who its victim is or how old. This is a good film that shows the strength of the human spirit during such extreme tragedy.Spoiler. alert: One high point was is 9th birthday when Ben was surrounded by friends and family who loved himThe saddest part ,in which I will never forget, was when Ben was in his mother's lap and his body violently jolted forward struggling to maintain life at the precise moment his heart stopped beating. Ben took in one last gasping breath and died in his mother's arms. As she held the lifeless body of her son she told him that she loved him.

I saw this movie many times as a child, my mom had recorded it on TV. It is about a family with 3 children, all boys with hemophilia. The oldest gets AIDS from the medicine he takes to help his blood clot. Back before 1985, the medicine was derived from pooled human blood, unscreened for diseases like HIV or HepC. Imagine my surprise to deliver my first child in 2002 and find him diagnosed with hemophilia, which wasn't inherited from my parents. This movie was all the information I had about hemophilia and it was so sad. Luckily, my son's life is nothing like that of the Ben in the movie. Yet, it is a good reminder of the pain the hemophilia community endured because of poor medical treatment. I'd like to find a way to get a copy of this movie.

superb performance by young Ben. Excellent also by parents especially Greg, Richard Thomas.