Battlestar Galactica (1978) Pilot – Review

The impact Star Wars had on movies and television cannot be overstated, for years Glen A. Larson had tried to get a space exodus show greenlit called Adam’s Ark but with no luck, then with the success of Star Wars the execs over at Universal quickly greenlit the project under the new name Battlestar Galactica.

The pilot episode titled "Saga of a Star World" was re-edited and released theatrically in Canada, Australia and some countries in Europe and Latin America to help recoup the expense of such a special effects laden production. Those of us who got to see this theatrical release had the privilege of seeing the traitorous Count Baltar beheaded by the Cylons, but when it aired on American television he survived to become a recurring villain.

 

Even Cylons have a hard time taking out John Colicos.

The story of Battlestar Galactica is set during "The Seventh Millennium of Time" as a thousand year war between humanity and the Cylon Empire is finally coming to a close. Commander Adama (Lorne Greene) of the Battlestar Galactica is the only member of the Council of Twelve who doesn’t trust this armistice because mankind’s very existence is an antithesis to everything the Cylons stand for, “They hate us with every fibre of their existence. We love freedom. We love independence, to feel, to question, to resist oppression. To them it is an alien way of existing they will never accept.”

 

“Secondly, have you seen them? They’re evil robot overlords for god sake!”

The President of the Council Adar (Lew Ayres) pooh-poohs Adama’s fears because it was the Cylons who sued for peace through the masterful negotiations of Count Baltar (John Colicos). Of course, anyone who has seen an episode of Star Trek knows not to trust robots or anybody played by John Colicos. This doesn’t stop Adama from having some fighters patrolling the area, and low and behold a Cylon fueling ship is discovered by Adama’s two sons; Captain Apollo (Richard Hatch) and Zac (Rick Springfield). As Zac is Apollo’s younger brother, and this is his very first space patrol, you can chart his life expectancy with an egg timer.

 

Well at least he has a music career to fall back on.

The first forty minutes of the pilot is full of solid dramatic tension that is then boosted by fantastic action as the Cylons make their attack on the fleet as well as the home worlds of the Twelve Colonies. In such a brief time Glen A. Larson and director Richard A. Colla have made you care for these characters so that it actually matters to you when they are in danger. When Adama informs Adar that the pilot who was just killed was his son it’s just gut wrenchingly powerful. This is what you get when you cast someone as great as Lorne Greene. Things get even worse when Adama learns of the attacks on Caprica where his wife, and Apollo and Athena’s mother, currently is. This is where the Armistice Ceremony was to take place but instead it is strafed by Cylon Raiders.

 

“This is Serena of Fox News reporting on how Obama’s soft on Cylon stance has led to disaster.”

Now it isn’t all doom and gloom as there are some light moments in this first hour with most of those centering on roguish Viper pilot Lt. Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) whose card game is interrupted by the Cylon attack. His character is also given the unfortunate problem of a love triangle between Athena (Maren Jensen) who is Apollo’s sister and Cassiopeia (Laurette Spang) who before the attack was a socialator, which is short for a space prostitute who is sanctified by the elders. This may sound silly but to be fair, Joss Whedon later used this profession on his short lived show Firefly.

 

Starbuck, he’s catnip to both good girls and bad.

It’s at about this point that the story structure gets a bit dodgy, we get Adama mourning over the ruins of his home where his wife perished, then we get wacky hi-jinks with Starbuck and his love life, and then the true horror raises it's ugly head as we get the introduction of Boxey (Noah Hathaway) and and his robot dog Muffy. Serena (Jane Seymour), the reporter on Caprica, survived along with her son but his daggett (that’s space dog to you and me) did not. Serena becomes the love interest of Apollo while a traumatized Boxey is given a robot replacement for his dog. Whenever I watch a scene with Muffy I just feel awful for the poor chimpanzee stuck in that horrible robot dog suit.

 

Cheeta never had to put up with this kind of crap.

Then as the survivors of the attacks form a ragtag fleet we are introduced to Sire Uri (Ray Milland) who is part of the newly elected Council of Twelve and is also a complete asshat. He’s a self-entitled prick whose sole purpose seems to be to piss off Commander Adama and roll over for the Cylons like a space faring Neville Chamberlain. I’m a huge fan of Ray Milland, but this character is just awful. We first see him living in the lap of luxury eating roast something or other and partying with his rich friends while most of the fleet are starving with barely enough water to stay alive, and then he constantly tries to get everyone to agree on a peace treaty with Cylons as if he has forgotten what happened during the last peace accord… ONE BLOODY DAY AGO!

 

Dial “M” for Moron.

The planet Carillon is the nearest place that could supply the fleet with desperately needed food and fuel but Adama is leery of it being another Cylon trap, but slimey Sire Uri gets the council to agree that Carillon is the only option. When they arrive at Carillon instead of finding a deserted mining operation, which is what they were led to believe, they find a space casino that is just full of happy winners. This kind of thing will become indicative to the series as our intrepid heroes travel through space on their way to find a mythical thirteenth colony; they keep running into more and more humans. I’m not so sure why the Cylons have such a hardon for the Galactica and friends when it looks like humanity is spread out through the galaxy. They’re worse than weeds.

 

Though apparently they are tasty.

Turns out that not only is Carillon a secret mining operation with ties to the Cylons but the casino is a front for the insectoid Ovions who have used the place as a lure to capture humans and then serve them up as living food for their hatching larvae in their underground chambers. Sire Uri had organized an awards ceremony in the casino for Apollo, Starbuck and Boomer (Herbert Jefferson Jr.) for their part in getting the fleet safely to Carillon. All the pilots were to attend which would have left the Galactica completely vulnerable, but a suspicious Adama had the pilots switch places with maintenance crews and serving staff so that when the Cylons sprung their trap Adama could spring his own. The Cylon raiders are wiped out and their Basestar is destroyed.

 

“By your command, we suck at our jobs.”

You won’t find too many cooler looking enemies than the Cylon Centurions in Battlestar Galactica, their shiny chrome armor and pulsing red eye make them one badass looking villain. Their backstory is interesting as apparently the Cylon were originally a reptilian race that came to the conclusion that humans were the ideal design, so they created robots in our image and now those reptiles are instinctual and their robot children are all that is left of them.

 

Though why the Imperious Leader looks like a deranged Jar-Jar Binks is beyond me.

On the downside, the Cylons are slow moving and are even worse shots than the Stormtroopers from Star Wars. The true villain of the series is of course Count Baltar who betrayed his species for personal gain and then when his job was done the Imperious Leader ordered his execution. But when the Cylon Basestar was destroyed at Carillon he was given a reprieve by the new Imperious Leader (voiced by Patrick Macnee who also does the opening narration) and told to open up negotiations for a new truce with the humans.

 

With his street cred that should be super easy.

Many decreed this show as being a blatant rip-off of Star Wars, as did 20th Century Fox who sued them for copyright infringement citing 34 similarities between the two films. The courts ruled in Universal’s favour, stating that the two films were very different when viewed as a whole. I for one agree with that verdict as even though there are some similarities between the two shows, their stories and character are vastly different. Sure, Starbuck is a roguish character in the same vein as Han Solo but you can find that same character in countless westerns and film noirs.

 

“I could do the Kessell Run in less than FIVE parsecs.”

Battlestar Galactica is a science fiction epic that sadly only lasted one year. It was superbly cast with several Star Wars alums like special effects wizard John Dykstra and conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie helping to make it a fantastic looking show. So join me each week as I will be going through every episode of the series as well as it’s follow up show Galactica 1980. It should be a fun ride.

“Fleeing from the Cylon Tyranny, the last Battlestar Galactica leads a ragtag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest... for a shining planet known as Earth.”

Project Almanac (2014) – Review

So you find a time machine in the basement, what do you do next? Director Dean Israelite and writers Jason Pagan and Andrew Deutschman try to answer that question as if posed to a group of idiot teenagers. The result is a movie that is more in line with Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and The Butterfly Effect than it is films like Primer, Looper and Predestination.

 

 David Raskin (Johnny Weston) is a seventeen year old science prodigy who wants to go to M.I.T. but though he is accepted he does not get the full ride scholarship he needs so that he can attend. So he roots around the attic in the hopes of finding something of his late inventor dad’s that he can parley into a scholarship. What he and his sister Christina (Virginia Gardner) do find is an old video camera that contains footage of David’s seventh birthday party, but what is startling is that on this footage is a shot of seventeen year old David caught in a reflection. This leads to David and Christina checking out their dad’s basement lab and the discovery of a temporal relocation device, aka time machine.

 

"It’s cool but it’s no flux capacitor."

Right there my suspension of disbelief is challenged, not them finding a time machine hidden in the basement that’s totally cool, no what I don’t buy is the fact they we are supposed to believe that this science geek has not been in this lab during the past ten years since his scientist father died because he was told not to by his mom. This is worse than Richard Parker’s subway lab in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 because at least that was hidden while this one was in the freakin basement! For a science geek David has very little curiosity.

 

“Curiosity killed the cat, and that sounds dangerous.”

David brings his two best friends Adam (Allen Evangelista) and Quinn (Sam Lerner) into this and with the aid of his videographer sister they plan to finish his father’s work. Time travel is some tricky shit to write as anything you do will raise questions of “cause and effect” and of course paradoxes, this film takes those things about as seriously as Bill and Ted did. They immediately decide to use the device for personal gain; Quinn wants to re-take a test so that his academic path will be smoother, Christine uses it to thwart some bullies, Adam to win the lottery “duh” but it’s when David tries to use it to win the affections of his long time crush Jessie (Sofia Black-D'Elia) things take a turn for the worse.

 

Time Travel Booty Call.

Turns out when David tries to “Groundhog Day” his way into Jessie’s pants the resulting butterfly effect has some devastating effects. This film could have gone in an interesting direction as our intrepid group of teens tries to deal with the cosmic ramifications of their invention, but instead we get a twenty minute commercial for Lollapalooza that stops the movie dead in its tracks. Project Almanac goes for cheap time-travel gags and not much else. They don’t even try to explain how if you repeatedly go back in time to the exact same spot why aren't you constantly running into multiple versions of yourself from the previous trips?

 

“This is so much better than killing Hitler!”

Many will compare this film to Josh Trank’s Chronicle but the use of found footage in that film seemed organic while in Project Almanac much of the time the filming of events is beyond stupid. At one point this gang of idiots realize they need hydrogen to power the time machine so they break into their high school science department to get it. AND THEY FILM THE ENTIRE CRIME! It's one thing to want to document this wonderful scientific discovery you are making for the sake of posterity, but you may want to leave out the parts that involve felonies. Of course the biggest stumbling block to the found footage genre is justifying why characters are carrying around a camera and filming everything, and this film doesn’t even try.

 

I’m not even sure who is filming half the time.

As I’ve said before, writing a solid time travel story is not easy but if you aren’t going to take the genre seriously you then at least have to give us characters we can relate to. Sadly, this group of yahoos are too dumb for me to get behind. After their first “successful” test of the device sends a toy car back in time, but also with it ending up phased through the wall, they are convinced by Jessie to skip any more trials and move immediately to human testing. I know that a pretty girl can drop some guy’s IQ points just by their proximity but you’d think Christina would have stepped in and smacked some sense into her brother and his idiot friends.

 

“Guys, she has a vagina, we must listen to her.”

I’ll give the film credit for the cool back-pack time machine that can be operated via a smart phone, but it’s constant barrage of stupidity undercuts any cool factor it tries to build. This isn’t the worst film of the genre, I’m more disappointed of the wasted potential than anything else. So if you are a fan of time travel movies and have 106 minutes to kill go ahead and check it out, but keep expectations lowered.

Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950) – Review

Tarzan and the Slave Girl is the second outing with Lex Barker as the Ape Man and though the series still relies much on studio backlots it actually has more fantastical elements than what were seen in the Weissmuller movies.In Tarzan’s Magic Fountain our heroes encountered a hidden valley that had an elixir giving fountain of youth, and in this installment Tarzan must do battle with a lost outpost of ancient Egypt. Two things not at all that uncommon in the Burroughs books.

This movie begins with Tarzan (Lex Barker) and Jane (Vanessa Brown) hearing a scream while wandering via elephant though the jungle. When they stop to investigate they discover that a local tribeswoman has been abducted. Her superstitious people put her disappearance down to “dark spirits” but it only takes Tarzan a couple of minutes of jungle lore deduction to figure out she has been kidnapped. Along with a couple of tribesman, Tarzan tracks down the kidnappers. After a brief altercation, the abductors escape with the girl. It wasn’t a clean getaway as Tarzan managed to cut up the face of one of the villains and capture another.

 

Today’s villains borrowed wardrobe from a Flash Gordon serial.

Before Tarzan and the angry villagers can interrogate their prisoner, Jane discovers that the man is deathly ill with a very contagious disease. She quickly sends Tarzan to fetch Dr. Campbell (Arthur Shields) who, with the help of his voluptuous nurse Lola (Denise Darcel) and drunken big game hunter Neil (Robert Alda), put together a rescue party. Because hunting down kidnappers is man’s work Tarzan tells Jane to take Lola to their treehouse for safekeeping.  Unfortunately, it turns out that Lola has got the hots for Tarzan and Jane has to put her in her place.

 

Jungle Catfight.

After losing her fight with Jane, Lola runs off into the jungle only to be immediately captured. When Jane swings to her rescue she is promptly captured as well. Not Jane's finest hour, and she is basically a damsel in distress through out.  It seems that a lost civilization of people called Lionians who, surprise surprise, worship lions and are currently on a slave run to replenish their population due to this deadly disease plaguing their people. The leader of the slavers, Sengo (Anthony Caruso), targeted Jane because of Tarzan carving up his face.  Some people take facial maiming so personally.

 

That all the captured native girls are white is a bit odd.

This may not be the best Tarzan movie, but it is chock full of a lot of fun stuff; Tarzan and the safari must fight off blow-dart wielding camouflaged native allies of the Lionians, Jane and Lola will get entombed alive, we meet a sad Prince who has a dying son, Tarzan will single handled take on the Lionians warriors, people will be sacrificed to a group of man eating lions, elephants will come to the rescue, and Tarzan will of course give Sengo his comeuppance. Overall, this movie has everything one expects in a jungle adventure.

 

Luckily there are no giant apes to give them a hard time here.

This was Vanessa Brown’s only outing as Jane; she only took the part because she needed rent money, "My intellectual friends said, 'My God, what you won't do for money.'” Lex Baxter gets to a lot more this time out and seems to have settled nicely into the role and has some really nice action moments.  The comedy bits with Cheeta are limited to one drunken ape scene and him bashing Lionians on the head with a club during the big finale. This film does contain two of the big standards found in the early Tarzan films and that is elephants coming to the rescue and native bearers in a safari dropping like flies. Though to be fair, if you’re not Tarzan or Jane there is a good chance you are going to buy it when visiting the Africa of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

 

Happily Ever After.

The Visitor (1979) – Review

There is something truly fascinating about a movie that starts out making very little sense and then proceeds to get even more messed up and nonsensical as it goes. That is the case with Giulio Paradisi’s 1979 new age meets Star Wars flick called The Visitor, but what is truly astounding is the caliber of people who decided to join him on this cinematic acid trip.

The film opens on a strange alien landscape as two figures face off in some kind of cosmic High Noon in space. One of the figures is dressed like a Jedi and looks surprising like John Huston, he watches the other dark figure carefully as a powerful storm approaches and soon envelops the figure in a snowstorm, at which point it is revealed to be an evil demonic girl.

 

We are either on Tatooine or the home of The Cat People.

We then jump to Space Jesus telling a bunch of bald kids the story of the evil super-criminal Sateen who escaped from Commander Yavay’s amazing spaceship and fled to Earth. You see Sateen (totally not Satan) is a mutant with an unquenchable desire to kill and while on Earth developed psychic powers to which he uses to sow death and destruction wherever he goes. Yavay arrives and turns into a flock of birds to kill Sateen but the mutant turns into an eagle to fight off the birds and almost wins until the final three birds of the flock fatally wound him in the brain. Unfortunately, that is not the end of Sateen’s evil for he had managed to impregnate some Earth women and now Yavay’s descendants spend the centuries trying to prevent the spread of Sateen’s evil.

 

“And now I’ll pass out Kool-Aid for everyone.”

Jerzy Colsowicz (John Huston and it really is him) crashes the meeting to inform Space Jesus that a new descendant of Sateen has been found, her name is Katy Collins (Paige Connor) and she is just turning eight. If any of the above made sense to you I suggest you go and seek psychiatric help.

 

The face of evil.

This movie is the ultimate movie mash-up as it contains elements of; The Bad Seed, The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, Star Wars, The Birds, Carrie, The Fury and for some reason Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It’s as if Giulio Paradisi put all those scripts into a blender, hit purée and then dumped the contents out on a page without worrying if it’d make a lick of sense. The main characters in this drama are Barbara Collins (Joanne Nail) the girl’s mother, Raymond Armstead (Lance Henriksen) her boyfriend and owner of a Los Angles NBA team, police detective Jake Durham (Glenn Ford) who thinks Katy is an evil little shit, and Dr. Walker (Mel Ferrer) who is head of a strange and powerful cabal that uses its power and influence to spread the evil of Sateen.

 

"Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star? We do, we do!"

It’s Raymond’s job to get Barbara to marry him so that she will get pregnant and provide Katy with a brother. You see Barbara has a cosmically powerful uterus that contains Sateen’s genetic code and will pop out evil babies and thus tip the scales in the war against evil. The problem is that Barbara does not want to get married nor does she want any more kids as she knows there is something wrong with Katy. The group tries to make Barbara more dependent on Raymond by having Katy “accidentally” shoot her mother at her birthday party. Barbara is crippled and confined to a wheelchair but still will not marry Raymond. Detective Durham investigates the shooting wondering how a loaded gun got inside a wrapped package that was supposed to contain a toy bird. He harasses Katy one too many times and ends up dead from a bird attack while driving on the freeway.

 

Sadly, hitting the brakes while being pecked at by a bird never crossed his mind.

During all this, “The Visitor” Jerzy Colsowicz and a group of his bald followers have been monitoring Katy, watching her powers grow to the point where she is able to toss bullies around with ease. Jerzy isn’t Katy’s only nemesis as the new housekeeper (Shelley Winters) isn’t taking any guff from this eight year old terror and has no problem slapping the shit out of her.

 

Think Mary Poppins but with a stronger backhand.

The true horror of this movie is just the utter hell poor Barbara Collins goes through. She gets shot in the back and confined to a wheelchair and when she refuses to marry and get pregnant she is drugged and artificially impregnated. When she goes to her ex-husband (Sam Peckinpah) and gets an abortion she is attacked by a bird, followed by a beating from Katy and then Raymond trying to strangle her.

 

You don’t cross Lance Henriksen.

Eventually, Jerzy and the housekeeper meet up on the rooftop for their close encounter with the cosmic powers which, when unleashed, form into a flock of birds that attack Katy and Raymond. One of the birds turns into some kind of ceramic/stone bird and stabs Raymond to death

 

They should have called Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren.

Jerzy comforts the poor traumatized Barbara while all the other members of the cabal are found just as gruesomely dead as dear ole Raymond. We then cut back to Space Jesus and his bald little minions as they find out from Jerzy that Katy has, “Become just like the others, she thought I wanted to kill her. We can’t kill children, only the evil part, and that’s no more”. If that’s not supposed to be incredibly creepy than they failed.

 

This is a happy ending, I guess?

This movie has one of the most impressive casts I’ve seen in a genre movie. None of them really phone it in, with Lance Henriksen being especially good as the creepy boyfriend and young Paige Connor being quite excellent as the telekinetic spawn of evil. This film is certainly what one would call an “acquired taste” as its batshit crazy for most of its running time, so if you want to see John Huston stalk and then go one on one with a mini-Carrie then this is the film for you.

The Fury (1978) – Review

People wielding supernatural powers in the movies is certainly nothing new but in the late 70s and early 80s it wasn’t old hat yet and we got some great and some not so great films; Carrie (1976), Scanners (1981), Firestarter (1984) and of course we got today's entry The Fury which not only was helmed by Carrie director Brian De Palma but also starred Amy Irving, one of the few survivors from that film. The Fury is based on the 1976 novel of the same name by John Farris, and though there are key similar elements between the book and the movie, much was changed to amp up the horror elements for the big screen.

The movie begins in the Middle East where we are introduced to father and son Peter Sandza (Kirk Douglas) and Robin Sandza (Andrew Stevens) and their friend Ben Childress (John Cassavetes) who are having a good day at the beach. Peter informs his son that they are going to be moving back to the States so that Robin can attend a special school that can help him with his unique gifts.

 

“It’s the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, I’ve heard it’s quite uncanny.”

After Childress takes a mysterious phone call a group of terrorists attack with the clear intention of killing Peter. Childress hustles Robin to safety while Peter scrambles for his life amongst a hail of machine gunfire until he manages to get to the bad guy’s speedboat and make his escape, but then the boat takes a hit and explodes. Of course it takes more than an exploding boat to take out Kirk Douglas, and once he climbs out of the surf he spots Childress chatting with one of the “terrorists.” He doesn’t take that revelation to well.

 

Kirk Douglas; still an action star at sixty-one.

The story jumps ahead eleven months as we slowly learn that Peter has been doggedly trying to track down the people who took Robin. You see, both Peter and Childress worked for a secret intelligence agency, it just turns out that Childress worked for an even more clandestine branch of the agency that has been recruiting people with psychic gifts in the hope of turning them into living weapons. Drawn into this struggle is young Gillian Bellaver (Amy Irving) who appears to be equally gifted and who Peter wants to aid in his search for his son while Childress wants her for his stable of psychic killers.

 

Psychic and cute as a button to boot.

Gillian is not a happy young woman as her abilities range from telekinesis to telepathy that she has little or no control over, and worse is when she touches someone while in an anxious state she can cause them to instantly bleed from their eyes, ears or even old wounds will burst open. When she learns of the Paragon Institute, a place that may actually be able to help her, she begs her mother to let her attend. Unfortunately for poor Gillian, the place is run by Dr. Jim McKeever (Charles Durning) who unsurprisingly is working for Childress to supply him with test subjects.

 

“Yes, he was thinking the plus sign, but can you now make his head explode?”

As the movie drives forward we follow two threads; one is Peter running around Chicago dodging squads of killer agents bent on preventing him from finding his son while the other is Gillian, learning that she is somehow psychically linked to Robin and her wanting to find him. She hopes that maybe he can help her, as a vision she gets of Dr. McKeever chasing Robin out of a second story window has somewhat shaken her faith in the institute. Also thrown into the mix is Hester (Carrie Snodgress), a nurse at the institute who Peter has seduced so that he can get some inside intel and to eventually help break Gillian out.

 

She does get Gillian out but things don’t go so well for her.

Meanwhile Robin is being drugged and subjected to all manner of tests to make him into a killing machine, but their key tool in controlling him is Dr. Susan Charles (Fiona Lewis) who has become Robin’s mistress. What can't sex with an older woman solve? The problem is that they have ramped up his emotions to such an extent that he is a bubbling atomic volcano just waiting to explode. During a day trip to the city, Robin sees Dr. Charles talking to two men from the project which causes a jealous rage that results in a psychic temper tantrum that sends amusement park rides flying.

 

“Don’t make me angry, you won't like me when I’m angry.”

Who would have thought mentally torturing a young impressionable man that happens to have the ability to kill with his mind could go horribly, horribly awry? Oh right, anybody with half a brain. Things go even worse for Dr. Charles as her romantic hold over Robin completely crumbles and he goes into full on Carrie mode.

 

And she doesn’t even get taken to the prom.

When Peter and Gillian finally make it to the super-secret training facility, which seriously could pass for Charles Xavier’s school, it’s too late as Robin is now officially batshit insane. Things have gone so far off the rails that after Childress’s goons capture our intrepid heroes, he invites Peter to go up and talk to his raging psychotic son. To say that Peter is a bit shocked to find his son’s room painted in blood and littered with corpses is a bit of an understatement. Sadly there is no tearful reunion between son and presumed dead father as Robin is too far gone and proceeds to try and murder his dad, but only ends up with the both of them falling to their deaths. But unbeknownst to Childress before shuffling off this mortal coil, Robin managed to pass his power to Gillian.

 

Which is kind of like drinking a dozen Jolt Colas.

As villains go Childress could have come across as your standard evil government spook but John Cassavetes brings a good amount of textured complexity to this duplicitous bastard. The cat and mouse games between Childress and Peter are great because, as they were partners for years, they each know how the other one thinks, but Childress’s one failing is his inability to grasp the nature of the psychic forces he’s dealing with. Hubris is the last quality you want when trying to forge weapons out of young and volatile people. When Robin dies he just switches his focus to Gillian with a business as usual attitude. This does not lead to happy results for him.

 

Quite a bit of an explodey result actually.

So the movie ends with neither love conquering all nor evil triumphing, but instead we are left with the knowledge that out there in the world there is now a badass powerful Gillian who will not be taking shit from anyone. This totally needed a television series spin-off.

 

“Give me a sequel!"

The Fury is not one of Brain De Palma’s endless homages to Hitchcock, though the beautiful score by John Williams is very reminiscent of the Bernard Herman’s Hitchcock collaborations, and may have been released too soon after Carrie for my liking, but overall it is a well-crafted and superbly cast film with a great “Gotcha!” ending. Amy Irving clearly has the stand-out performance in this movie as a young woman afraid to even touch her mother and who is tossed into a maelstrom of danger and intrigue by forces she doesn’t understand. Andrew Stevens as her psychic counterpart is given less to do. We mostly see him act petulant, his forehead will throb and then bad shit will go down. On the other hand Kirk Douglas looks to be having a ball as an ex-operative gunning down the baddies, leaping out of windows and swinging over Chicago’s’ famous elevated train tracks.

Trivia Note: The hotel room Peter stays in is the exact room Jake and Elwood Blues survived a rocket launcher attack in The Blues Brothers. Also, look for a young Dennis Franz as one of the beat cops that Peter takes hostage during his time trying to elude Childress’ team of killers.

 

It's things like this that made him transfer to the NYPD.

This may not be De Palma’s best movie but it sure was fun, as it beautifully blends the espionage thriller elements with the paranormal aspects of the horror genre. So if you’re a fan of Brian De Palma, and have missed this gem, I highly recommend you track it down.