By Richard Winters
My Rating: 3 out of 10
4-Word Review: His patients are dying.
Dr. Peter Ross (Paul Michael Glaser) is a Canadian psychiatrist who has come up with a radical new therapy to help cure those who suffer from phobias. The program includes having them watch their fears played out visually on the big screen and thus forcing them to conquer those irrational thoughts and be able to go on living normal lives. Peter feels he’s making great progress with his patients only to suddenly have them start to die-off one-by-one with each perishing in ways that reflects their private phobia that they had hoped to overcome.
This is definitely one of those movies where what happened behind-the-scenes had to be far more interesting than anything that occurred in front of the camera. Having John Huston, the legendary director who helmed such classics as The Maltese Falcon and Key Largo doing this one, which is nothing more than a cheap thriller with 80’s slasher instincts, has to be the most baffling thing about it. It wasn’t like his career was on the outs either as he went on to direct several more critically acclaimed flicks in the 80’s that were well financed with big name stars and he had just 5 years earlier did the well received The Man Who Would Be King, so why he decided to take a weird foray into doing this inept thing, which just by reading the script you could tell was a mess upfront, I don’t know.
It starts out with some visual panache, but otherwise could’ve easily been directed by a no-name, two-bit director and no one would’ve known the difference. The one segment dealing with a car chase down the city streets that culminates with a man falling from a tall building had some potential though I would’ve framed the shot differently showing it from a bird’s-eye view where the viewer could see how far off the ground the victim really was versus having the camera on the ground looking up, which is less dramatic. I suppose it might’ve given away the safety net that’s clearly present as you never see him hit the ground, it cuts away while he’s still in mid-air, but in either case it’s the only mildly diverting moment of the whole film.
Everything else is run-of-the-mill including the numerous deaths, which despite the tagline don’t all have to do with their phobias either. For instance one woman fears being in big crowds, so in order to ‘cure’ her, the doctor has her go onto a crowded subway, but she panics and runs back to his place where she ultimately dies when a bomb explodes. The segment dealing with a woman who fears men gets pretty ridiculous as he has her watch a movie of a woman getting gang raped, which would appall anyone and yet when she runs out of the room in disgust and shock he’s confused. The very fact that he talks about ‘curing’ his patients is a major red flag altogether as in psychiatry you never really ‘cure’ anybody, which just shows how poorly researched and shallow the script really is.
Paul Michael Glaser, better known for his work in the TV-show ‘Starsky and Hutch’, makes for a wretched leading man and it’s no surprise that he decided to get into directing after this one and has never starred in a theatrical film since. It’s not completely his fault as his character exudes a cold demeanor, so you never really care about him, or his quandary. John Colicos, as the police detective, is far superior and helps enliven the film with the few scenes that he is in though his interrogation techniques are highly unethical and the fact that he only focuses on one angle as to who the culprit is makes his character come-off as unintentionally inept.
The film does feature a twist at the end as to who the killer really is, but it’s dumb and not worth sitting through. In fact the ultimate reveal is so bad that it ruins everything else that came before it, as it had been watchable up until that point, but the climax solidifies it as a bomb.
My Rating: 3 out of 10
Released: September 26, 1980
Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
Rated R
Director: John Huston
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Available: Blu-ray
Scopophilia 