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U.S.A.
/ 1975
Directed
by Robert Allen Schnitzer
Starring
Sharon
Farrell
Richard
Lynch
Jeff
Corey
Color
/ 94 Minutes / PG
Format:
DVD (R1 - NTSC)
Guilty Pleasures
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Guest
Review by Rod
Barnett |
Jude
(The Sword And The Sorcerer's
Richard Lynch) is a carnival clown/mime who travels across the
country taking photographs of people posing in his cutout signs
painted with amusing pictures. He seems to make an okay living
doing this work but for the past few years he's also been using
his job to locate a friend's daughter. Andrea Fletcher (Ellen
Barber) gave her child up for adoption six years ago and now
wants desperately to reclaim her. Andrea has let Jude think
that the three of them will be able to live together as a family.
In Mississippi he thinks he's finally found the girl and sends
word to the anxious mom. The little girl is named Janie and
is being raised by a well-to-do couple who have just relocated.
The child's adoptive father, Miles Bennett (Edward Bell), is
a teacher and researcher whose new job has brought the family
to the area. His job involves working with female parapsychologist
Dr. Jeena Kingsly (Chitra Neogy) in the study of ESP. Miles
seems to be a kind of scientific disbeliever in place to question
dodgy results. When Andrea attempts to abduct Janie but fails,
Jude has to deal with the now obviously crazy woman. In the
ensuing altercation he becomes enraged and kills Andrea. After
the failed kidnapping the adoptive mother Sheri (Sharon Farrell)
begins to have visions and confusing hallucinations that frighten
her. These trance-like states become more pronounced until she
is finally able to lead police to Andrea's body. Sheri's visions
become debilitating, culminating in an attack that causes her
to wreck her car on a rainy night. Injured in the crash, Janie
walks away from the car on her own and wanders into the nearby
carnival grounds. There Jude happens across her and decides
to keep her for himself. He packs up but on the way out of town
is stopped by a bizarre concert on the state capitol steps in
which Dr. Kingsly is trying to get Sheri to channel Andrea's
spirit to find their mutual daughter.
Yeah — this one's nuts.
Managing
to be both ridiculous and boring, The
Premonition is little
more than a drive-in second feature that thought it was more.
Ponderously produced, with an overcomplicated script, the movie
at times feels as if it were two different films welded together
on a bet. The two ideas are not combined well, with the visions/channeling
coming off as silly most of the time (even if the effect of
a rapidly freezing mirror is well done). The labored plotting
that gets us enough information about Andrea to figure out the
clues to what's happening to Sheri are right out of Poor Screenwriting
101. And I can't for the life of me understand why they threw
in the pointless romantic attraction between Miles and Dr. Kingsly.
This sloppiness is also evident in the flatness of the direction
that allows some good actors to flail about hopelessly at times
apparently unsure of were the camera is sitting. The editing
is also no help, with many scenes that are overly long and several
that could have been dropped altogether. Do we really need to
watch police detective Jeff Corey walk from a boat dock all
the way up to a house? The transitions from scene to scene
are sometimes jarring in a way that detracts from simply following
the story. More than once I was jolted out of the film by an
apparently unintentionally blunt jump to another shot.
I'm glad that such
an ambitious film was produced in the American south in the
1970s but my admiration ends there. I can see the outlines of
what might have been a good story about the bonds of blood and
love being stronger than death, but the ideas are so muddled
it never connects. This is a mess of a film that only occasionally
comes alive.
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| Media
Blasters has released The Premonition
on DVD under its Guilty Pleasures imprint and have given
it special edition-style treatment. The film is presented letterboxed
with a new "Psychotic Sound" 5.1 mix, looking and sounding
pretty darned good (especially for a 30 year old low budget independently
made movie). For purists the disc also includes the original Mono
sound mix in both English and Spanish. The print shows a little
wear but nothing distracting. The sound is good on both English
tracks but there is some hard to discern dialog during crowd shots.
Among the extras is a 20-minute interview with star Richard Lynch,
in which he recounts what he remembers of the film and relates
some interesting anecdotes. His discussion of his career is enlightening,
showing the hard work that goes into making a living as an actor
both on and off the screen. Lynch's kind words about The
Premonition come off as a little doubtful even if the director
of the film seems much surer of his movie's merits. On a commentary
track Robert Allen Schnitzer relates his influences, the history
of the production and spells out the details of the story for
anyone who might be confused.
11/27/05 |
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