Tag Archives: Horror

The Burning (1981)

Posted on October 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cropsy doesn’t look good.

A summer camp caretaker named Cropsy (Lou David) is badly burned during a practical joke gone horribly wrong. Five years later and disfigured he gets out of the hospital and goes on a murderous rampage using a pair of gardening shears. However, he kills young campers at a completely different campsite and who had nothing to do with his accident.

Jason Alexander, in his film debut, is great. He shows a lot of charisma and pretty much carries the movie. You not only get to see him with a full head of hair, but for the lady viewers you also see his bare behind along with Fisher Stevens’s. This is also Holly Hunter’s first film, but she is seen very little. The teen characters here look like real teenagers instead of college- aged young adults like in most of the other films in this genre. They also have a little more distinctive personalities and aren’t quite as cardboard as usual. The women are good looking and there is a gratuitous nude scene involving actress/model Carole Houlihan.

On the Blue Underground DVD version make-up artist Tom Savini hosts a bonus feature, but warns everyone at the start not to watch it until they have seen the film so as not to ‘spoil’ it for them. However, it is hard to figure out what exactly it is that he would be spoiling as the movie is routine to the extreme. There are absolutely no interesting plot twists or surprises. It is also hard to believe that anyone could get a pair of simple gardening shears to do the things this killer gets them to do. The only really scary scene in this film is at the beginning where you get to see a close-up of actor Lou David’s strangely shaped nose. The camera slowly zooms into him as he is sleeping and you feel almost like you are being driven into his extremely large nostrils that seem to get bigger and bigger.

Savini’s special effects really don’t seem all that impressive especially in this day and age. There is a scene on the infamous raft killing sequence where it is quite obvious that the neck that the shears are cutting through is plastic and not really that of the actor’s. Also during the opening sequence when Cropsy runs out of the cabin while on fire he is not wearing anything on top of his head yet when the camera cuts to an outdoor shot of him it is obvious that the stunt double has something on his head.

I found this to be as bad and as uninspired as all the other Friday the 13th rip-offs. This is good only as a curio at seeing Alexander, Stevens and Hunter in their film debuts.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: May 8, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 31Minutes

Rated R

Director: Tony Maylam

Studio: Filmways Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cult, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Slasher/Gore

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Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

Posted on October 5, 2012 | 6 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Crazy lady versus vampires.

Jessica (Zohra Lampert) is recovering from a nervous breakdown and taken to a secluded Connecticut home for rest and recuperation. Here she starts to see strange visions, but nobody believes her making her the only one aware of the dangers that are brewing around them.

Haunted houses, ghosts, zombies, weird townspeople, madness, vampires, and even a tacky séance this film seems to want to take all the elements from other horror movies and mix it into one. The idea may sound great, but the approach is tepid. This may be due to its low budget, but either way the final result is unexciting. Yes it is creepy and eerie specifically at the beginning, but it never manages to get to the next level with no real scares or even a few minor ones.

The film is also slow with some stodgy drama used as filler. The special effects are minimal and the little that is shown looks unrealistic. Only at the very end do things start to get interesting.

Director John Hancock adds a little flair and had the script been able to reach the level of its scintillating title this film might actually have been special. His framing and photography of the outside of the old house is good. There is also a shot of an early morning sun rising off a foggy lake that makes for a perfect creepy atmosphere. I also like his placement of the howling wind and the whispering voices although he does go to this well a little too often.

One good reason to watch this film is too see Lampert. Although always a supporting player this was to date her only starring vehicle. She has a distinctive look and style that doesn’t match the glamour of a conventional leading lady. Her face exposes a nice fragility to the vulnerable character that she plays and her performance of a tormented person is excellent.

Although she has a pair of unique blue eyes like actress Meg Foster Mariclaire Costello, as the ghost/vampire, is just not frightening. The rest of the characters are boring and seem almost like stand-ins.

I got a kick out of the antique dealer (Alan Manson) who tells Jessica about the death of the original owner of the home that she is now living in. The tale is bland and transparent even though he insists, several times, that it is ‘quite extraordinary’.

Released: August 6, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Rated PG

Director: John D. Hancock

Studio: Paramount

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Horror, Low Budget, Moody/Stylish, Movies with a rural setting, Vampire Movies

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Carrie (1976)

Posted on May 4, 2012 | 8 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Prom was a disaster.

A shy, awkward teen (Sissy Spacek) who is a virtual outcast at her school and has a religious zealot for a mother (Piper Laurie), learns that she has telekinetic powers and uses them in terrifying and deadly ways after falling victim to a cruel prank at her high school prom.

Nothing really seems to mesh here and the pacing is poor. For a great deal of time you feel like you are not watching a horror movie, but instead an annoying, clichéd 70’s drama. The majority of the scares occur at the end while the rest of the film has no tension at all.  It’s visually flamboyant, but empty and unable to hide its low budget roots. Like with director Brian De Palma’s other thrillers his style and heavy-handed Hitchcock-like touches become overpowering and you lose touch with the story. Too much is orchestrated and the movie is never allowed to gel and have its own natural flow. The opening, which takes place in a girl’s shower, looks like a soft core porn flick especially with the choice of music.

The teen-age girls are certainly cruel and their snotty attitudes seem valid, but the actresses are all wrong. Yes, Nancy Allen and Amy Irving are hot to look at, but they were too old for their parts. All of them were in their 20’s and look far more like college girls instead of students in high school. The P. J. Soles character is irritating. In an effort to give the role some distinction they have her constantly wearing a pink baseball cap. She even wears it to the prom with her prom dress and looks ridiculous and yet still has the audacity to laugh at Carrie when she shows up when in reality they would most likely be laughing at her instead.

Miss Collins, the physical Ed. Teacher, which is played by actress Betty Buckley is another problem. She goes beyond the call of duty to give Carrie the individualized and sensitive attention that she needs. It sounds nice, but I couldn’t buy into it because in most cases shy students that don’t otherwise cause problems usually get overlooked even by the best of teachers simply because the school systems are too large with too many students to handle.

William Katt was not very convincing in his part as a dumb jock. John Travolta is good, but only because he is playing an extension of his Vinnie Barberino character from ‘Welcome Back Kotter’. In fact I found his portrayal here to be even funnier than his TV counterpart.

Spacek is the best thing about the movie as she brings the Carrie character to life with a vengeance. The part where she tears up the gymnasium with her powers is genuinely creepy and the way she opens her eyes and moves them around is freaky. The use of the split screen during this segment help to make it a uniquely scary moment in cinema history and saves what is otherwise a forgettable production. The famous ‘surprise’ ending isn’t bad either and even managed to startle me a little and I don’t startle easy.

Unfortunately it’s lacking the necessary ingredients overall to make it a classic. It’s based on the Stephen King novel and yet leaves certain crucial elements from the book out, which only creates more questions and confusion. De Palma takes the most simplistic parts of the story and then glossies over the rest leaving the viewer feeling unsatisfied when it is over.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: November 3, 1976

Runtime: 1Hour 38Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Brian De Palma

Studio: United Artists

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Cult, Horror, Low Budget, Moody/Stylish, Movies Based on Novels

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Maniac (1980)

Posted on March 26, 2012 | 4 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: He wants their hair.

A loner (Joe Spinell) terrorizes New York City by killing young women and scalping them. He then takes their hair, brings it home, and places it (actually he nails it) onto the heads of some mannequins that he has.

In a lot of ways this is the same old mechanical slasher flick as it has all the predictable characteristics of the others that dominated the early 80’s. The story is simple and strung along by long, drawn-out murder sequences. There is some suspense, but it is minimal since we know exactly what is going to happen. The victims are young, good looking women, who are clueless to the dangers that are lurking until it is too late. One segment in particular features a nurse getting off of work late at night, who mentions her fear of the killer and yet for some reason she still foolishly refuses a ride home from her friend and instead walks down a dark, lonely street and into, of course, eventual carnage.

There are also some rather glaring technical errors. One features a woman (the same one who refused a ride) running from the killer by going into an empty subway. Although isolation is the whole factor here there is one shot, taken from inside a departing subway car that clearly shows a whole bunch of people standing just across from her on the other side of the tracks. There is also a segment where Spinell takes his girlfriend to his mother’s grave. When the car pulls up to the cemetery it is a nice, bright afternoon, but when they reach the actual grave it has become pitch black with a strange unexplained fog that has rolled in. Lastly there is the ending. This is a man that has terrorized a whole city and yet only two policemen in an unmarked squad car come to his residence and when they do they don’t even bother to secure the site.

Despite the low-budget problems there are a few things that raise this slightly above the rest. One is the fact that it actually manages to get inside the killer’s head. You hear the inner conversations between his ‘good’ side and his ‘bad’ side. Of course this only touches the surface of a true schizoid personality, but it does offer a little more depth than most. It also helps create a good portrait of a tormented soul and you end up feeling more sadness than fear for the man. The film also consistently has a dark, grainy look, which helps accentuate the ugly theme. Having it take place in New York City gives it a little more distinction and atmosphere.

The special effects are good. The part where he blows a man’s head off, through a car windshield, looks very realistic and has become the film’s most famous scene. The surreal ending, where the mannequins all come to life and exact a sort of revenge, is also well-handled and imaginative. Makeup artist Tom Savini, who also appears as the character of ‘Disco Boy’, has had a lot of success, but the stuff here may be his best.

Director William Lustig shows some panache and Spinell, who also co-wrote the screenplay, gives a surprisingly strong performance, but their attempts at creating a better understanding of a crazed killer prove placid and simply done for shock value.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: December 26, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 27Minutes

Not Rated (Graphic Violence, Brief Nudity, Language, Adult Theme)

Director: William Lustig

Studio: Magnum Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (30th Anniversary Edition)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cult, Exploitation, Horror, Low Budget, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with Nudity, Psychological, Slasher/Gore

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Happy Birthday to Me (1981)

Posted on March 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

happy2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: This birthday isn’t happy.

            Virignia Wainwright (Melissa Sue Anderson) attends a private school where she is a part of a snotty clique whose members start getting killed off just before her 18th birthday. Due to a freak accident suffered years before she has blackouts causing suspicions that she may be the culprit. With the help of her psychiatrist Dr. David Faraday (Glenn Ford) they try to come up with some answers.

Despite being listed as a slasher film and having gained a loyal cult following I found the gore factor to be disappointing. The killings are quite brief and the camera quickly cuts away before much blood, or anything else is shown. The famous shish kebab murder that is captured on the film’s poster is poorly executed. Apparently there was more footage of the killings, but in order to get an R-rating director J. Lee Thompson was forced to cut a lot of it out. However, it would be nice to get a director’s cut version as I am sure today’s horror fans may feel cheated otherwise. The grossest sequence for me wasn’t the killings at all, but instead the scene where Virginia undergoes brain surgery and her skull is vividly cut open and one can see the brain pulsating and expanding inside. The deaths really didn’t seem all that creative and clever despite the film’s reputation and if anything my favorite death scene didn’t involve one of the killings but instead was the part where Virginia and her mother are riding in a car that goes off a bridge and then fills up with water, which is surprisingly intense.

I also had some major issues with the film’s opening murder that features a young girl getting strangled while inside her car. For one thing the killer’s hands didn’t seem to be all that tight around her neck and when the girl manages to escape there are no marks around her neck even though realistically there should be. Also, when she escapes she runs for only a few feet and then stops behind a nearby parked car and acts like she is now ‘safe’ even though most people would run several blocks and probably wouldn’t stop until they found someone else that could help, or the police. The victim also speaks, but if someone has been strangled as severely as she has her voice would have to be effected by it and she might not be able to say anything, or at least speak in a very raspy tone, which is not the case here.

For the most part I found the film to be boring and predictable. I never once got scared, or even all that intrigued. The movie is jammed with every cheesy 80’s horror movie cliché that you can think of. Normally film’s from this genre run no more than 90 minutes and sometimes even less. Going 110 minutes as this one does is much too long for a plot that is paper-thin.  However, the very macabre ending is excellent and almost makes up for it. The surprise twist isn’t bad either although a bit implausible.

Anderson, best known as Mary Ingals from the long running TV-show ‘Little House on the Prairie’, isn’t bad. A shot of her at the end where she is carrying a birthday cake and looks up and smiles is both chilling and sexy and quite possibly the film’s pinnacle. There is no nudity although director Thompson teases the viewer by having her undress to get into the shower, but the camera never gets past her bra and panties.

Hollywood icon Ford is wasted and his tired appearance is almost sad. His wardrobe features him wearing an open shirt showing his bare chest and it looks ridiculous for a man his age. There is another scene where the police dig up a skull on the school’s grounds and the Ford character asks to take a look at it and the police promptly hand it over to him, which I found to be equally ridiculous as that is a crucial piece of evidence that would only be handled by a forensic expert.

If anything Sharon Acker as Virginia’s alcoholic mother Estelle gives the best performance.  Her overwrought slightly hammy scene near the end gives the film some much needed energy.

There were a few other loopholes and inconsistencies that irritated me enough to be mentioned here. One is that years earlier Virginia had a birthday party and all her friend’s snubbed her and didn’t show up, so they could instead go to a party held by a girl who was more wealthy and popular, which made me wonder why then would Virginia want to remain friends with them like she did.  Another part involves a member of their clique named Alfred (Jack Blum) who the girls initially think is storing the severed head of one of their murdered friends. They later realize that this was simply a realistic looking plastic mold that he had made to resemble her, which makes them feel ‘relieved’ enough to continue to socialize with him. However, anyone who makes plastic molds of heads from someone they know that has just been killed seems just as creepy to me and enough to make most normal people concerned, which the characters here are not. There is also no explanation at the end for how the killer, whose identity I will not divulge, was able to come up with such an elaborate and realistic disguise. The gory effects are also not convincing and could have used Tom Savini’s help

Like I said I found the film’s ending to be pretty cool and enough for me to suggest this film to horror fans, but only if they are willing to stick around for it.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: May 15, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 50Minutes

Rated R (Violence, Language, Adult Theme)

Director: J. Lee Thompson

Studio: Columbia

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Cult, Foreign Films, Horror, Low Budget, Movies from Canada, Slasher/Gore

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SSSSSSS (1973)

Posted on February 24, 2012 | 2 comments

ssss

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Man turns into snake.

            Dr. Carl Stoner (Strother Martin) hires a college student named David Blake (Dirk Benedict) to work as his lab assistant on his research of snakes. David also finds himself attracted to the Dr.’s daughter Kristina who also works with her father on his research. However, unbeknownst to both of them the kindly Dr. has come up with a serum that can change a man, over the course of several weeks, into a king cobra snake.

Although clearly done on a limited budget, this film really impressed me in a few areas. The first was that the actors performed with actual snakes. The snake handling that Martin did was simply amazing. I found myself captivated in one scene where he takes a live Black Mamba out of its cage and grab its head and then force feeds it through a special type of mechanical tube. Another scene has him taking a King Cobra out of its cage where, while in front of a viewing audience, he is able to grab its head and make it secrete its venom into a jar. To top that off the film climaxes with a mongoose attacking and killing a cobra, which is quite violent. I almost wished that this had simply been done as a nature documentary as it could have been just as frightening and fascinating. The chilling throaty sounds that the King Cobra makes, which is all perfectly natural, would be enough to scare most people. There is even a segment where actor Reb Brown gets bitten by a snake on his foot and it is done in slow motion.

Another thing that was impressive was the make-up effects done by John Chambers. Benedict really starts to look like a snake and the final transformation is incredible.

The areas were the film is limited is in the horror portion itself. For one thing it takes too long to get going. The metamorphosis doesn’t start to get interesting until the final fifteen minutes.  The David character seems much too passive and trusting as he allows the Dr. to continue to inject him with the fluid even after he starts to have weird side-effects. The Dr. character is not menacing, or creepy enough to be scary.  For most of the movie he seemed pretty cool and I found it hard to cheer against anyone who is able and willing to handle snakes the way he does. The music is another problem as it is too soft and melodic without the jarring and foreboding undertones that is needed to help accentuate the tension. The setting is bland we get no sense of the locale outside of the Dr.’s residence, which looks too much like a studio back lot. The entire production has a cheap TV-movie quality and it is photographed in a flat, unimaginative way.

The side-story involving the budding romance between David and Kristina is uninteresting and unnecessary. The segment where the two go skinny dipping and their genitals are strategically covered by trees and plants at every conceivable camera angle looks cheesy.

            If you are into snakes, or make-up used for special effects, then you may find this film satisfying.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 2, 1973

Runtime: 1Hour 38Minutes

Director: Bernard L. Kowalski

Rated PG

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, VHS

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Posted in 70's Movies, Horror, Sci-Fi

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Re-Animator (1985)

Posted on February 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

re animator

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: The dead come back.

Daniel Cain (Bruce Abbott) is a student at a nearby medical college who decides to take in as a roommate a foreign student named Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs). West seems a bit anti-social and very intense about his work. He sets up a lab in Cain’s basement where he does experiments to bring back the dead by injecting them with his specially formulated serum. He starts with animals, which makes it intriguing enough for Cain to get in on it, but when they start to move onto cadavers at the school’s medical lab things spiral out of control.

Compared to most low-budget horror films of the 80’s, and I have seen many, this thing is nicely compact and well-paced. There is none of that extraneous dialogue and needlessly slow, drawn out scenes before you can get to any type of action, or horror. It grabs your attention right away with a clever, whimsical opening sequence and a musical score that although does sound similar to the one used in Psycho is still quite effective.

The gory special effects are excellent even when compared by today’s standards. Normally I have no problem watching these things no matter how high the gore factor is, but the scene where the instructor peels the skin off the head of one his cadavers during a class lecture and then cuts through the bone of the skull and takes out his brain had me feeling a bit queasy. The best part comes when Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale) gets his head chopped off at the end of a shovel, which is again well-done, and then has both his body and head injected with the serum. The scenes involving the headless body walking around while carrying this talking head are creepy, hilarious, and highly effective. It is realistically enough looking during a couple of sequences that it had me sitting there wondering how they pulled it off. My only quibble in this area would be the part where West reincarnates a cat that comes back to life and turns homicidal.  It is very clear that this ‘killer cat’ is nothing more than a stuffed animal as its fur looks fake and the body is unrealistically thin.

The film is directed by first-timer Stuart Gordon whose only claim to fame before this was when he was a student at the University of Wisconsin in 1969 and he brought in an audience into an auditorium to watch a play he had written and then locked the doors so they couldn’t get out. He intentionally made the play as boring and annoying as possible just to see how long it would take them to rise from their seats and clamor to be let out. Although this was enough to get him expelled I still admire the guy’s panache. That same type of snarky humor is evident here and woven in, in a way that nicely balances the horror. My favorite scene here, and one that I remember most distinctly from when I first saw it back in the 80’s, is when Dan meets his girlfriend Megan (Barbara Crampton) in the school’s hallway. He starts to kiss her passionately and she feels embarrassed and tells him ‘no, no, no’ and then it quickly cuts to show them in bed where she is saying ‘yes, yes, yes’.

Another thing that differentiates this from other low-budget horror films is the fact that the lead characters are not as bland as usual. I liked the way Dan has a moral quandary and teams up with West on some of his experiments. Both Dan and Megan are better fleshed out as characters and believable. Crampton also looks gorgeous and has a good nude sequence at the end.

Kudos must also go to Robert Sampson an actor who has worked steadily since the 1950’s, but has never become a household name. He plays Dean Halsey father of Meagan and his part takes off after he is accidently killed and brought back to life with Herbert’s serum where he turns into a mumbling, crazed lunatic. This isn’t as easy to pull off as you may think and his catatonic stares are fabulous.

David Gale deserves mention as well playing the evil doctor. His pale skin and sullen face make him look like he is dead from the very beginning and he has the perfect look for a horror film. He clearly relishes his role and hams it up nicely. He started to garner a large cult following after his performance here and offers to play similar roles in other horror films began to pour in when he unexpectedly died in 1991.

The only performance I really didn’t like was that of Jeffrey Combs. I know he has pretty much become the face of the Re-Animator franchise, but this guy seemed hammy without ever being amusing, or funny with it. I didn’t like the square, metal rim glasses that he wore as they were much too typical.  An eccentric character should wear eccentric looking glasses and attire to help accentuate his off-beat personality. I also didn’t dig his accent that seemed to waver between Bavarian, German, Russian, and some weird variant in between.

If you are looking for something different this Halloween then I suggest checking this one out. It has just the right amount of ingredients to be both entertaining and scary at the same time and it can still easily hold-up with today’s jaded viewers.

My Rating 7 out of 10

Released: October 18, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 26Minutes

Rated R

Director: Stuart Gordon

Studio: Empire Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Horror, Low Budget, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Slasher/Gore

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The Fury (1978)

Posted on January 19, 2012 | 3 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Blow up the body.

Another Brian De Palma/Hitchcock wannabe, this one involving a sinister secret government agent named Ben Childress (John Cassavetes) who wants to use the amazing psychic abilities of a young college-aged man named Robin Sandza (Andrew Stevens) for his own nefarious purposes. While he is in Israel with the father and son he decides to stage a terrorist attack, which he hopes will kill the boy’s father Peter (Kirk Douglas) and allow him to whisk Robin away to an underground research lab where no one will find him. However, Peter manages to survive the attack and goes on a relentless pursuit to find his son. This occurs while a young woman named Gillian Bellaver (Amy Irving) with equally strong parapsychological traits starts to have visions of Robin and his whereabouts while attending a school that specializes in people with these abilities and eventually she teams up with Peter to help him in his quest.

I liked the opening sequence being shot on-location in Israel, which gives the film an exotic feel. The attack is well-handled and comes as a surprise without any set-up, but I felt there was a fatal flaw with the premise. This is namely the fact that with Robin’s amazing psychic abilities you would think he could figure out that his Dad was still alive and be able to find him while also outsmarting the people who are holding him.

The secret agency thing and what they are using him for is vague and we see only a few scenes with him there. I felt this should have been more detailed and less time spent with Gillian at the psychic school, which is not very compelling and rather draggy.     There are a few good action moments, but unfortunately they come at the beginning and end with a talky middle that lacks any real suspense.

However, Peter’s escape from some gunmen by jumping out of an apartment window and onto the ‘L’ tracks along Wabash Avenue in Chicago is amazingly well shot and nerve-wracking.  A scene where Robin tortures a female Dr. (Fiona Lewis) by using his telepathic powers to spin her around a room until  blood oozes from her body and sprays all over the walls and furniture deserves some merits, but I wished it had been more extended. There is also the exploding body that is the film’s final shot and possibly its best and it is shown several times at different angles. I also enjoyed the darkly humorous scene where Robin uses his powers to send a ride at an indoor amusement park out of control and throwing the riders through the window of a nearby restaurant.

De Palma’s trademark over-direction is in full gear. Sometimes it works, but other times it is a distraction. For instance he uses a lot of panning shots showing one person talking and then panning to the other person and then back again. During a funny scene where Peter breaks into an older couple’s apartment while looking for a disguise this really works, but De Palma continues to go to this well throughout and eventually it becomes annoying. There is also a foot chase that is done in slow-motion, which to me sapped the tension and excitement right out of it. He does have a few bird’s-eye view shots, which while not adding anything to the story, are still kind of cool.

Andrew Stevens, son of actress Stella Stevens, is well cast as the young man who starts out likable, but slowly becomes evil as the film progresses. Stevens has a good knack for this as he can go from nice to menacing very quickly and I first noticed this during a classic episode of Murder She Wrote. His clear blue eyes can give off a creepy stare as well.

John Cassavetes is an excellent bad guy.  He is best remembered as an independent film director with a unique vision, but with his dark features, cryptic glare, and intense delivery he can also be a very good villain. I don’t think the film made the most of it, but it was astute casting.

Although billed as the star Douglas does not have the most screen-time and there are long periods where he isn’t seen at all. This was really a vehicle for Irving, who is convincing and makes the viewer sympathetic to her quandary of having super-powers that she does not fully understand, cannot control and doesn’t really want.

It’s an interesting idea, but doesn’t go far enough with it. There weren’t enough twists to justify sitting through almost two hours. The pacing is poor and had it been trimmed to 90 minutes it would have worked better. The special effects are decent, but there needed to be more of them and they might not hold-up to contemporary standards. John Williams’s orchestral sounding score helps elevate what is really just bubblegum material.

This is a great chance at seeing some young stars in their film debuts including Darryl Hannah, Laura Innes, and James Belushi. There is also an amusing scene featuring Dennis Franz with a full head of hair playing a nervous and befuddled Chicago cop.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: March 10, 1978

Runtime: 1Hour 58Minutes

Rated R

Director: Brian De Palma

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

3 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Horror, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in Chicago, Sci-Fi

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