Psychic Powers In Cinema: Four Faves

By Less Lee Moore

This is what we psychics refer to as an “axe drop.”

Filmmaker Joe Begos brought his updated (and superior) version of 1982’s Xtro to the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness programme in 2013 with Almost Human. Now he’s back, along with Almost Human actor Graham Skipper and horror legend Larry Fessenden with The Mind’s Eye. You can read my review on Modern Horrors, but here’s a synopsis:

On a snowy back road in New England, police harass a drifter, only to be thrown through the air by an unseen force. Clearly, they’ve picked the wrong man to hassle. Taken into custody, the loner is identified as Zack, a man with a curse/blessing that makes him of particular interest to the seemingly sympathetic Dr. Slovak. Zack finds himself in Slovak’s institute alongside others with similar telekinetic abilities, but the doctor’s intentions are quickly found to be less helpful and more diabolical.

Telekinesis, or psychic power, has long been a staple of both science fiction and horror, and the crossroads where the two genres often meet. Here are a few other versions of being able to make things happen with THE POWER OF YOUR MIND in cinema.

They’re all gonna laugh at you!

Carrie, 1976

Poor Carrie White. She just wanted to go to the prom with The Greatest American Hero and then Danny Zuko and Riff Randell had to dump pig’s blood on her and spoil her lovely dress. Things do not end well for anyone in this movie: almost everyone dies and the high school and most of the town explodes in flames after Carrie wreaks mental vengeance on anyone who looks at her sideways. Brian De Palma directed this horror classic adapted from Stephen King’s first novel.

Amy Irving is furious! Or perhaps she’s just consumed too much Spice.

The Fury, 1978

Another Brian DePalma movie based on a book, The Fury comes from John Farris’s novel of the same name. Kirk Douglas is a CIA agent whose psychic son Robin has been kidnapped in order to turn him into a weapon. Amy Irving, who was the Final Girl in Carrie, portrays fellow psychic Gillian who shares a (wait for it) psychic connection with Robin. The Fury has an explosive ending which not everyone survives.

Gratuitous “Oliver Reed in Bathrobe” photo

The Brood, 1979

In this film, Frank Carveth desperately wants custody of Candice, the daughter he shares with ex-wife Nora (a frightening Samantha Eggar). The only problem is that Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed and his terry cloth bathrobe) are keeping Nora as a kind of prisoner / lab experiment in the Somafree Institute. It’s for everyone’s good: Nora’s unbridled rage has created a brood of malevolent mutant children without bellybuttons.

This is what the kids refer to as “head asplode.”

Scanners, 1981

David Cronenberg double dipped into the telekinesis well with Scanners. In this film, fictional weapons and security system ConSec is using psychics—referred to as “scanners”—as weapons (weaponized psychics were really popular in the late 1970s). A rogue scanner named Darryl Revok (Canadian genre staple Michael Ironside) tries to wage his own personal war against ConSec, so the company sends Cameron Vale, another scanner, to do battle.

This post was originally published on the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness programme blog.