What makes it different from others?

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

not as good as all the hype

Am I Missing Something?

Richard Burton plays a man who can make terrible things happen by willing it so in his mind. The opening scene shows him being battered nearly to death in his apartment; the rest of the movie he's lying in a coma. His brain activity is still very much alive. Will detective Lino Ventura and psychiatrist Lee Remick be able to stop him before he strikes again? That premise sounds like a potentially good thriller, but the vast majority of the movie is spent trying to convince the leads that Richard Burton really is responsible for the disasters he's claiming credit for. But, told through flashbacks, the audience believes him immediately, so most of the time it's boring waiting for the other people in the movie to catch on. It would have been more exciting if the audience doubted his powers as well.Still, Lee Remick is beautiful, and she's given lots of wide-eyed close-ups in this movie, so if you just want the eye candy, you can probably get through it.

This 1978 movie absolutely blindsided me. I'd read its name mentioned in articles for years, but until 2015, hadn't seen it because it was out-of-print. Knowing nothing about its plot, aside from the title, I finally watched it. I don't know what I was expecting, but certainly not the quirkiest, most exciting, big-budget horror film since 1985's Lifeforce. If you're a fan of that film, then you'll probably be a fan of this one. Not because the plots are similar but because both have scripts that start off on one track and then---Wham!---careen into the unanticipated. Richard Burton stars as an author of highly-controversial writings about the British government who gets bludgeoned to death by an unseen assailant in the film's opening scene (this is not a spoiler). From there, the story of his life unfolds in flashback, some told by Burton's former psychiatrist (Lee Remick), and some gleamed by the French detective assigned to investigate the homicide. Nothing is what it seems. Burton had telekinesis.This is not a film for anyone who wants fast-paced action. The slow build-up of The Omen has more in common with this film than, say, the hyper-kinetic set pieces of The Fury. What begins as a simple murder mystery evolves, by its conclusion, into a worldwide, epic-sized psychic battle to usurp The Establishment. Burton's character was not too keen about The Establishment. To reveal much more takes away the fun.Would I recommend this film to anyone under 30? Probably not, its slow pace would likely frustrate most Generation X-ers and Millennials. They are not the target audience for this movie. But for those who were sipping bourbon when The Legacy, Halloween and The Shining were still playing in theatres, drink deeply and enjoy. This movie begs to be rediscovered and re-evaluated.

The premise seems promising enough for an enjoyable thriller. Man is capable of causing disasters purely by psychic means. Think Uri Geller, but instead of bending spoons he brings down airplanes. OK, where do we go with this? Well, the director never really solves that problem. We get to see how from a young age the man finished off anybody who got under his skin, even his nagging parents. ( BTW in a particularly clumsily directed scene. We even get to see the dummies drop down the cliff.) However, at first nobody believes in his evil powers. And that's really all the movie consists of. Most of the screen time is taken up by the authorities s-l-o-w-l-y becoming convinced that he really is evil. By which time it's too late to stop him. It's just not nearly enough to make for a scary movie, certainly not for viewers over-saturated by apocalyptic action scenes. There's no drive, no central dilemma to resolve, things just meander along to their violent climax, which comes off as a major anti-climax. As Hitchcock pointed out, you can show the bomb ticking away, but you musn't make it go off. Aside from that, Ventura and Burton, both brilliant actors, never go head to head, because Burton spends most of the movie bandaged up in a hospital bed. How's that for suspense? So many ingredients for a good thriller, but what's served up is a bland dish.

This was promoted at the time as a star vehicle for Richard Burton who also appeared in THE WILD GEESE the same year . What wasn't promoted at the time was that the screenwriter was John Briley who would go on to Oscar winning success with the screenplay for GHANDI . Briley's structure follows that of a whodunnit . Novelist John Morlar is found battered nearly to death in his flat and French detective Brunel traces Morlar's life by talking to witnesses and realises bad things happen to people who cross Morlar It's hardly Oscar winning stuff but as a piece of low brow entertainment it serves its function . What makes it such a morbid delight is that the audience can empathise with Morlar's telekinetic abilities and to be honest we'd all use them to get back against sadistic teachers , noisy neighbours and cheating lovers . Morlar only becomes a villain when he starts killing people he has no argument with like plane passengers and astronauts There's also some wonderfully bitchy dialogue that Burton delivers in an appropriate dead pan style such as when Mrs Morlar introduces her fancy man to her husband , the fancy man being a renowned West End actor " You might like to pour yourself a large drink " " Why ? Is he going to perform for us ? " The climax takes place at a cathedral where a large amount of VIPs are congregating and guess what happens next ? There's a high amount of amusement to be had watching a bunch of well dressed film extras being crushed to death by polystyrene boulders crashing down . In fact the scene with the bell ringers being bonged to death by bells caused me to collapse in tears of laughter That scene sums up the whole movie . You'll feel slightly dirty watching it but you'll have almost two hours of undiluted entertainment even though you don't want to admit it