Review of The Fury (1978) by Robert B — 25 Jan 2012

The Fury (Brian DePalma, 1978).

In the golden age of modern horror, which spanned roughly the mid-seventies to the mid- (in film) or late (in books) eighties, you could round up an all-star cast to make a movie no matter how awful the source material was as long as you had the word "supernatural" somewhere in your spec. (Case in point: two movies were made based on godawful hack novels by pulp writer Frank de Felitta. Both of them attracted top directors and onscreen talent. One of them is actually very good.) And thus you have a director like Brian DePalma getting involved in a string of what would probably be direct-to-DVD horror flicks today. Not to say they're not good-Sisters and Carrie speak for themselves, of course. But DePalma ended up that decade-long streak of horror flicks with The Fury, a good-selling, if minor, novel by a very fine writer named John Farris, who is these days, unfortunately, mostly forgotten. (If you've never heard of him, haunt your local used bookstores until you score copies of All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By, When Michael Calls, and Catacombs. You will thank me.) Not only that, but he roped in some of Hollywood's best and brightest for this relentlessly bleak psychic-powers thriller that contains a few scenes that may never leave you-the entire reason I watched it again last month was because I remembered the scene with the roller coaster from having seen it back in the seventies. But the rest of the film is... average, or maybe a bit above.

Plot: Peter Sandza (Kirk Douglas) is on holiday with his son Robin (The Boondock Saints' Andrew Stevens) in Israel in the early seventies when the resort they're staying at is hit by a terrorist attack and his son is kidnapped... or so it would seem. Things don't add up, however, and Sandza eventually learns that the "attack" was planned by his colleague Ben Childress (Rosemary's Baby's John Cassavettes) with Robin, who has psychic powers, as the sole target. Thus begins Peter Sandza's year-long quest to get his son back, which involves a great deal of illegal activity, repeated attempts to gain the assistance of a budding psychic (Amy Irving) who is terrified of her extrasensory gifts, and Daryl Hannah (Splash) and Laura Innes (ER) in their first screen roles.

...and I'm not even scratching the surface of this cast list. Dennis Franz, Charles Durning, Melody Thomas (now Melody Thomas Scott), Rutanya Alda, Pat Billingsley, another dozen others you will know when you see them, even if you're not necessarily familiar with their names. With this much acting talent in the film (even though the majority is a cat-and-mouse game between Douglas and Cassavettes, with most of the other characters just paying tribute to the plot), it would be well-nigh impossible for it not to be exceptionally well-acted, but no one brought their A games to the table. Irving and Cassavettes at least bring their B+ game, but much of the rest of the cast has a "I'm glad I'm getting a paycheck" feel to it. DePalma feels almost out-of-place here, with a bigger canvas and a bigger budget than he'd ever had before; even Carrie, despite being made within the Hollywood machine, has a gritty, low-budget feel to it. DePalma obviously got himself on track quickly, given how well he plays the canvas and budget in Dressed to Kill, but The Fury feels like he's getting his feet wet.

And that ending. My god, that ending.

Still, there's enough here for you to give it a look, especially if you're a fan of the supernatural thriller. The anomaly of A-list stars in what should have been TV movies is just too alluring to pass up. ***.