B MOVIE BLOCKBUSTERS: Psychic Killer
BACK OF THE VHS BLURB:
A wrongfully accused man, who is actually exonerated early on, learns astral projection in mere minutes and then begins to take vengeance on those who didn't help his mom. He has vivid black and white visions of just ridiculous wrongdoings, and repays them with psychic attacks. From the comfort of a nice chair, he sets out to become a telekinetic vigilante. The body counts keeps piling up, and the ever inept police force takes the entire film to figure out what is going on.
So...WTF did I just watch?
MOVIE: Psychic Killer
YEAR: 1975
DIRECTOR: Ray Danton
CAST: Jim Hutton, Paul Burke, Julie Adams, Nehemiah Persoff, Neville Brand, Stack Pierce
B-MOVIE HIGHLIGHTS:
Okay, so this one was just dandy. Madness, astral projections, and some of the most ridiculous deaths due to telekinetic vengeance I have ever seen. Let’s jump in and see what the fuck this shit is all about.
We find ourselves in a mental institution for the criminally insane, where Arnold Masters (Jim Hutton) is freaking the fuck out. He wakes up in a nightmare state and loses his damn mind. He is restrained and taken to the padded room, where Dr. Laura Scott (Julie Adams) administers some knock out drugs and then he cries it out for a bit. Dr. Laura is very concerned for him, and hopes to help him, but sadly, the rest of this movie happens.
Arnold is relocated to what I guess is the prison wing of this asylum. He is lead out to a gated concrete outdoor area, where he sees another inmate just staring out over the giant ass drop just beyond the gate. While other inmates are wandering around in their mental states, this man is stoic. Arnold decides this is a good guy to go chill with. They watch a train go by, and then it’s time to get brutally honest and delve into why each other is there. Move over Redd and Andy Dufrane, because Emilio and Arnold Masters are the best prison BFF's ever.
Emilio (Stack Pierce) bluntly says he killed his daughter for being a whore. Consider the ice officially fucking broke. Arnold gives us all the back story we needed, as it turns out his sick mom had a tumor. The operation was going to cost a shit ton, so they couldn't pay. Arnold had an argument with the doctor, left, came back and found him dead. Then he, and I fucking quote, "accidentally got blood on him while reaching for the scalpel" and that's what got him arrested and convicted.
Wait. Hold on, Arnie. Why the fuck were you reaching for a scalpel in the doctor’s office around his dead body? What the hell were you going to do? Perform surgery? Something stinks, Arnie. But anyways, lets bypass this. Arnold also says how after his incarceration, all the caretakers for his mother were just assholes and basically she died four days later from lack of care.
Emilio tells Arnold he's gonna kill the pimp that made his girl a whore, and carve his name into his chest, and then he himself will die the next day, and then, AND THEN AFTER HE DIES, he will help Arnold get justice. Shit's getting weird, I can feel it.
That night Emilio starts making weird astral projecting sounds from his cell, and holds an amulet. After some odd grunts and sweaty neck shots, we move on to the next day. Emilio says he got the pimp, and throws up deuces and climbs the fence. Using the barb wire as leverage, he tosses himself over the fence and becomes a dummy as he plummets to his death. Arnold is then given all of his shit because he wrote a will to give everything to another inmate he met like two days prior. Seems legit.
So, in the matter of like five minutes that night, with no training other than hearing Emilio grunt across the hall, Arnold learns to astral project. Guards find him seemingly dead, and he is taken to the morgue. They go to autopsy his dead ass but he wakes up as the first cut is made. The doctor performing the autopsy shit his pants 100%.
THE NEXT FUCKING DAY, Arnold is informed someone else admitted to the crime he was charged with, and is let go. CONVIENENT AS FUCK THOUGH. Dr. Laura sees him off, and Arnold goes to the rundown and cobweb filled house he and his mother shared. He walks around, and cries like a bitch. Then, after a good sob, its time to find a comfy chair and fuck some shit up, psychic style. First on the list, the court therapist that fucked him over at his trial.
Now, this movie tries really fucking hard to make you hate the people Arnold is going to kill. REALLY HARD. This therapist has taken a hot young blonde client up to a cabin to fuck her because she actually has repressed sexual feelings for her dad. GTFO MOVIE, WHY THE FUCK? I didn't need this old pervert to be this fucking weird, but okay then. As he tries to caress her down, before the kung fu grip, he hears his voice being said over and over. He loses his shit and grabs a gun going off after the mystery voice. What he finds is a broke fucking neck. How his neck broke, I don't know. He fell over, but he was old, so I guess maybe the impact twisted his bones, or, like, yeah, his neck broke, all you need to know really.
Police are on the case and after an intense polygraph, HE WAS NOT THE FATHER, I mean, they didn't know who killed this guy. Well their ineptitude will need more bodies before they can figure shit out, and Arnold is willing to oblige.
The nurse who was terrible to his mother has a new terminal, bed-ridden client. She fucking starts stripping because she is wearing a nurse uniform, and just wants to tease this old dying man. I HATE YOU NOW, OK? She then leaves the old man to go dance in her panties and take a shower. WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK IS GOING ON IN THE HOME CARE SERVICE SECTOR OF THIS CITY? Well, Arnold is tired of this shit, and scolds that bitch alive in the shower, before she dramatically leaps out of the glass door, and slices her self up as well. Police show up once more to scratch their heads and solve absolutely nothing.
They send an officer back up to old man Broke-Neck's place to look again for clues. Turns out his officer is the arresting officer for none other than Arnold Masters. Arnold, like Pepperidge Farms, remembers. He keeps that pedal to the metal and sends this guy’s car out of control. After a long sequence of speeding up a mountain and then GOING OVER 90 mph towards the cliff side, the car is then seen SLOWLY INCHING OVER THE EDGE TO A GENTLE FALL INTO THE OCEAN. A MOUNTAIN CABIN WITH AN CLIFFSIDE OCEAN VIEW. WHAT?
So now the police are onto Arnold, but have no evidence. So, they call in Dr. Laura to help. After some surveillance they find he is lying in his house, with no pulse, as his astral self drops a fucking concrete slab on the Italian opera singing sleazy lawyer who had sold him out in court. Still, the police are unable to do a damn thing.
Arnold then kills a butcher, who was, I guess, mean to his mom. Now Arnold is just getting petty. But we get Neville Brand for like 5 minutes of screen time before his whole butcher shop turns on him. He gets sliced and diced and hung and it’s the most graphic scene in the film.
Dr. Laura and the lead in the case, Lt. Jeff Morgan (Paul Burke), for no real reason, decide to have a dinner date and get intimate. Arnold, who has a crush on Dr. Laura, sees and is pissed. Dr. Laura and Morgan head to a colleague of hers, one who specializes in paranormal studies. Dr. Gubner (Nehemiah Presoff) tells them he thinks Arnold is killing people as an astral projection, and well damn we've know the whole time, this guy figured it out in like 5 minutes, but the police are still fucking trying to figure shit out. Damn.
Anyway, Morgan gets an idea. He waits for Arnold to try to kill again. While he is astral, and his body is seemingly dead, Morgan gets a coroner to confirm the death, and quickly packs up Arnold's body and heads to the crematory. Dr. Laura and Dr. Gubner see this, but stay in the house, searching for the amulet, in hopes to save Arnold. Dr. Gubner finds it, but since he went into Arnold's mother's room, that was a no-no, and his throat is torn out by a now old as fuck Arnold. I guess when you go astral you get the greys pretty quick.
Arnold confronts Dr. Laura just as his body is being cremated. His old man astral self loses his shit, and Arnold's killing spree ends as he is returned to his body and is burned alive. Brutal.
Well, that was a fucking all over the place kind of film. I felt uncomfortable, I felt confused, and I felt like I was losing my mind at times, and that must have meant it was a true B-MOVIE BLOCKBUSTER.
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