Friday, May 08, 2009

The Fury (1978)

The Fury is a 1978 supernatural thriller film directed by Brian de Palma. The film was written by John Farris based on his novel of the same name. It starred Kirk Douglas, John Cassavetes, Carrie Snodgress, Amy Irving, Charles Durning and Andrew Stevens. The music was composed by John Williams, and was highly praised by critic Pauline Kael, who called it "as elegant and delicately varied a score as any horror film has ever had"

The plot combines elements of horror and the spy thriller. A teenage girl, Gillian Bellaver (Amy Irving) discovers that she possesses psychic powers, including telekinesis and extra-sensory perception, but that other people suffer bleeding if they touch her. She volunteers to attend the Paragon Clinic, whose director, Dr McKeever (Charles Durning), works for a shady intelligence operative named Childress (John Cassavetes). Childress has betrayed his friend Peter Sandza (Kirk Douglas) and is using Sandza's psychic son Robin (Andrew Stevens) in research into the weapons potential of psychics. Meanwhile Peter, who survived Childress' set-up, is searching for his son; with Gillian's help and that of his girlfriend Hester (Carrie Snodgress) he tracks Robin down, but Childress' ruthless experiments have driven the young man insane, and he and Peter both die within minutes of their reunion. As he dies, Robin has some form of psychic contact with Gillian. When Childress tries to persuade Gillian to accept his "help", she finally accepts her talent and kills him by exploding him from the inside out.

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