Director: Brian De Palma
Year: 1978
Country: USA/Israel
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Following the kidnapping of his son, a spy turns to a woman's psychic connections to find him from the former friend who's intending to use his son's psychic abilities to turn him into a psychotic killer he can manipulate for the government, and they try to stop his nefarious plans to get his son back.
Review:
Frankly, there's not a whole lot to really enjoy here. Among the few strong points here is the strong action-packed opening, with the big action-packed shootout that takes place on the crowded beach that comes off rather nicely with the way it manages to start this off on the numerous plotlines while also figuring on generating plenty of strong action along the way. With the majority of the film seemingly constructed as an action movie about taking down the spy ring enables for some rather nice action as well, with a decent foot chase through a series of apartments and a fine shootout in the middle of a car chase helping this one out as well.
As well, the scenes of the two going through the tests trying to find him as well as the utterly cheesy fun of the unleashed powers at the carnival makes for some rather fun action-scenes here that go a long way toward helping this get more of a horror feel throughout here. As well, there's some fun to be had in the finale where it really brings out some nice action and a rather enjoyable sense of resolution, letting it play out in this manner with all the different storylines coming to play out rather nicely along with the bloodshed, to give this a strong finish.
There are a couple of really big distractions to this film, as one of the biggest is the overly-stylized direction. The slow-motion escape from the Institute is a prime example, going on so long that the scene starts to slip into self-parody rather than showcase the pathos of the sequence, doing the whole scene that way rather than only a small portion. The fact that there are lots of scenes that go on far too long is another big problem, spread throughout, that come off as padded and overlong and go on way longer than necessary. There's tons of scenes like this, including the various conversations in the hospital and the parts in the old folk's home are needlessly overlong.
That carries over into the rest of the movie, with this one being so long setting up the different tactics of getting her to cooperate with them or passing their tests that this one just isn't all that much of a horror film, as the industrial spy subplot takes over so much of the film that it holds this one back by not letting those elements get a chance to be featured, and there's not a lot of time to let those in. The other minor problem here is the stupidity of letting him be used in that manner, which makes no sense and is destined to fail, though the other issues here are more detrimental overall.
Overview: ***/5
Not bad but nothing special of a genre effort, there's a lot to this one that works rather nicely enough to hold this up against a few big, detrimental flaws that keep this down. Those with an appreciation or interest in the subject matter, or who are fans of the creative crew, will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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