If I hadn't seen other, much better, horror films from the this time, then based on this movie I would assume that people in the 70's would piss their pants in fright every time bread popped out of their toaster as toast. Seriously, look at that movie cover and you'd think that Kirk Douglas was trying to get away from some sort of two headed monster. I could get into that. In reality though this movie is more akin to a shitty version of Taken with secret government agencies and ESP powers.
For a majority of the movie it's two parallel plot lines where Kirk Douglas is trying to get his "gifted" son Robin back from a shady government agency that makes him think that Kirk is dead. The other story line is of a teenage girl named Gillian that also has ESP powers and horrible friends. I assume the writer of this movie was really into the Silva Mind Method because there's a huge explanation of how you can channel Alpha waves to have psychic powers followed by a strangely long "look at these people's faces over and over" scene while Gillian moves a model train with her mind. The train eventually wrecks... RIP tiny train passengers... Gillian is clearly a monster.
The two eventually cross paths and lameness ensues as they then try to track down Kirk Douglas' son, who in truth, has turned into a huge douche-cicle. Robin has now intensified his powers through what I assume is some form of forehead kegels which make two of his veins throb while doing telekinesis. It's gross. It makes me think of the antenna on the old Sectaurs toys (go ahead, look them up, I'll still be here when you're done).
Eventually Robin goes completely off his shit, kills his professor/girlfriend-ish-person by making her bleed from everywhere, then subs the actress with a terrible mannequin and spins that around in the air like some lady-dreidel. Kirk Douglas and Gillian do a shit job of sneaking in thanks to Gillian screaming like an idiot and are caught by John Cassavetes' men. I didn't mention he's in this up to this point because his character is the generic government bad guy but he has a sweet death coming up, so get hyped! Kirk Douglas and Robin eventually meet again, Robin flies (literally flies) at Kirk and both tumble out a window and down the roof. Kirk tries to save Robin, Robin claws Kirk's face and Kirk promptly drops that asshole to his death. After a moment Kirk realizes what he's done and throws himself sloppily from the roof too.
My notes for that scene are as follows:
"I'll save you son! Nah! Fuck you, son! Nah! Fuck me!"
Before Robin dies he looks into Gillian's eyes and their eyes glow for some reason. Maybe this is the "fury" this movie is supposed to be about? I don't fuckin' know! But this leads a scene at a later time where John Cassavetes is telling Gillian that everything is okay and he's going to help her. She kisses his eye which then blinds him and turns him into the Frankenstein monster apparently as he just stumbles around the room with his arm out, yelling and swinging wildly at the decor. Gillian says "You go to hell!" and I instantly began wishing for a Scanner's style death, which I got in spades! In the 70's doing things like full body explosions was a one shot deal, so you got every camera you could get, in every angle, and then film that shit! The last two minutes of the film is just different angles of John Cassavetes exploding over and over.
This movie was awful, but at least it ended on a high note. However, the low notes during the movie are pretty fuckin' low. Nobody can take a bullet in this movie, including the person that gets shot in the center of his forehead and then continues to drive a car for about a minute. Kirk Douglas slaps Gillian at one point, and that's not cool. Don't give me that "it was a different time" shit. It was bad, and you should feel bad. There is also a scene where a woman goes through a windshield and the glass is just straight up window glass, not safety glass. Also, a car crashes into a lake and then explodes on impact. Fuck this movie.
I give it two soulless Kirk Douglas heads out of five, and that's only because there's a scene where Gillian is playing a Fairchild Channel F video game console .
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