The Medusa Touch - 1978 film review

In my youth, I used to see Peter Van Greenaway's books in the library quite often. When I looked at the blurbs and first few pages, I was never sufficiently enthused to borrow them, probably because it was clear he wasn't writing novels in the same vein as contemporary writers of the time whom I admired, such as Julian Symons. Probably this was a mistake (even if it wasn't a misjudgement of his type of writing) on my part, because I rather enjoyed The Medusa Touch, an unorthodox film made by Jack Gold from one of his unorthodox novels.

Nowadays, I'm much more receptive than I was then to genre-bending stories, and this film blends three distinct types of story - murder mystery, sci-fi, and horror. Let's take the murder mystery first. The film begins with an apparently fatal attack on a writer, John Morlar. The case is investigated by Scotland Yard in the unexpected person of a French cop who is there on some sort of exchange scheme. He is played, pretty well, by Lino Ventura. The first big surprise for him is that Morlar isn't quite dead from the bludgeoning he's suffered. He's rushed to hospital, while Ventura delves into his past.

A series of flashbacks follow. This isn't usually a good way to present information, but it's done fairly well. Morlar is played by Richard Burton and he has been seeking psychiatric help from Dr Zonfeld (Lee Remick). We learn that, throughout his life, Morlar seems to have had a strange power to inflict harm on people who get on his wrong side. And in recent times his misanthropy has been increasing.

The murder mystery element of the story proves to be quite perfunctory, so to that extent my youthful instincts may have been on the right lines. We're dealing with telekinesis here, though (spoiler alert) the source of Morlar's powers is never explained, and I find that irritating. The later stages of the film turn into a dramatic attempt to prevent Morlar inflicting colossal harm on institutions that he despises, and these action scenes are pretty well done. The supporting cast is terrific - it includes Jeremy Brett and Michael Hordern as well as many stalwarts such as Harry Andrews, Philip Stone and Norman Bird. To sum up, an odd film based on what I suspect is an odd book by a writer who was attracted to oddity. But interesting enough to make me curious about Van Greenaway's other work and - at last! - ready to try reading him.

The Shining - film review

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining was released in 1980, but I've managed to miss seeing it all these years - though I was keen to repair the omission. Kubrick was a gifted film-maker, and this movie, based on a novel by Stephen King which I haven't read, has enjoyed a great improvement in its reputation after receiving rather mixed reviews on its first release. It's now widely regarded as one of the great horror movies.

Essentially, its storyline'offers a variant on the "haunted house" theme. Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) is hired to spend the winter looking after the remote Overlook Hotel. He's warned at the outset that the hotel has an unfortunate history - a previous caretaker, called Grady, went crazy and dismembered his family. But Jack isn't daunted. He's a writer,wanting to work in peace on his next project, and is accompanied by his wife (Shelley Duvall) and young son Danny.

At first all goes fairly well. Jack gets down to work - and what writer wouldn't fancy the idea of a long break in congenial surroundings to get some serious writing done? Unfortunately, the wise writer, in my opinion, takes interruptions in his stride, and Jack really does not handle interruptions at all well. What's more, Danny starts seeing disturbing visions. Soon, things turn rather nasty...

I was amused to see Philip Stone playing the part of Grady; I remember seeing him, when I was a small boy, in a crime series called The Rat Catchers, starring the once-popular Gerald Flood, that my parents used to watch, though I can't remember much about it. He was a quintessentially English actor, so it was rather odd to see him in this film. Jack Nicholson, needless to say, was entirely convincing as the increasingly deranged Torrance.

The film is stronger on visual effects (the spookiness of the vast hotel is cleverly done, and there's a terrific climactic sequence in a snow-covered maze) than on narrative consistency. I gather King has mixed feelings about the adaptation, but on the whole, it's a gripping film, even if there's plenty of scope to debate whether the demons plaguing Jack Torrance come from within him or from outside. I'm glad I caught up with it at long last.