Rish Outfield's reviews
One of the first rules we made for this site (and the one rule we haven't broken) was Horror is what we say it is. In this case, though, I can't really pass this one off as Horror. There's a couple spooky moments, as well as a paranormal subject matter, but it's Drama first, Action second, heck, maybe even Science Fiction third, and Horror fourth. Perhaps that fourth justifies reviewing it on the site. Regardless, I have little to say about the parts that were Horror.
Some of this movie definitely did not suck. The story was intriguing, and Kirk Douglas's performance was really good, as was Amy Irving's. If you look real close, you can spy Daryl Hannah and "E.R."'s Laura Innes in a scene, and "NYPD Blue"'s Dennis Franz in another. There were, of course, some nice shots and cool camera angles--what else do you expect from De Palma? Plus, I enjoyed the tension and paranoia of the film, plus the occasional humor. The John Williams score had some great moments.
Unfortunately, the ending sucked (not quite as bad as the ending to, say The Fly II sucked, but in the same vein). It sucked folks, and sometimes, even if a movie is pretty good but the ending sucks, you walk away thinking the whole movie sucked.
Based on the novel by John Farris (and adapted by the author), I got the feeling that this was one of those adaptations that is so faithful to the novel that many parts are not explained and actions and motivations make no sense. It was like I was watching one of those miniseries where some industrious editor has cut it down into a single episode (you know what I'm talking about).
Apparently, a lot of people really like this movie, and that's cool--it's not like I despised it, I just thought the ending fell flat and don't believe it's Horror. You may feel differently (after all, the great Rick Baker worked on this film), and that's what makes this world interesting.
That . . . and Evil.

The tyranist's thoughts
I love the idea of psychic powers. I have for a very long time. Whether it was Jean Grey of the X-Men or Stephen King's Carrie. The whole idea of a superior mental ability fascinates me. That said, this is probably one of the most interesting psychic movies around.
Kirk Douglas witnesses the kidnapping of his psychically talented son by a government agency he used to work for. A year later he is still on the trail when Gillian (Amy Irving) starts to exhibit her own very powerful psychic abilities which happen to make people around her bleed. It becomes a race for him to get to her so that he can use her to find his son before the same agency that kidnapped his son can take her too.
Amy Irving is back in her second Brian DePalma film and she does a fantastic job as the psychic girl. Too bad she hasn't done much horror. Kirk Douglas plays a pretty standard character and isn't terribly convincing at times, but he's always fun to watch anyway. Watch for little Daryl Hannah in her first screen role and a cameo by Gordon Jump.
I really dug on this one for some reason. It has strong horror elements but moves a lot like an action film. And the psychic stuff is just cool. This one is well worth the effort to find it.