Il tocco della medusa

Hmm. Some of the reviewers here have complained about the film's slow pacing. Well, yes...compared to the MTV style edited movies of the past 5 years, I'd have to agree. But, the pacing is also necessary in order to show the slow psychological breakdown of the lead character. It's a slow burn type of story, and the filmmakers were much more concerned with building a creepy atmosphere than bombarding us with CGI effects, blood and gore, and whatever else passes for supernatural horror these days.

Besides, Richard Burton on a bad day is better than most actors at their best.

If "Jason X" and other hollow, special effects driven films are your idea of horror...then this isn't the film for you. The Medusa Touch is a methodically paced thriller, aimed at genre fans who enjoy a more thoughtful kind of horror film. If you enjoyed "Don't Look Now," then this is the type of film for you.

If you have the rare opportunity to catch this obscure film, you should at least give it a fair shake. Then you can decide for yourself.

The manner in which the film was chronographed was somewhat unique. In real time the main character, Morlar, is comatized by severe head trauma. In fact the movie opens with his attempted murder. The unfolding of events in the ensuing investigation are presented with smooth transitions from flashback to present in order to create a sense of fatalistic inevitability. The director takes a very difficult path to achieve this but I think he pulled it off very effectively. Look for little tricks to smooth out the staccato chronological transitions. Small similarities between outgoing and incoming scenes create a more seamless effect.Also, the sounds of a former scene would linger for a couple of seconds after the transition, further uniting past & present to emphasize the inevitable hopelessness of the inspectors situation. It also serves to demonstrate Morlar's indomitable, fatalistic will.

All the characters are well (and cleverly)cast, particularly Richard Burton as Morlar. VonGreenway's book comments on the intensity of Morlar's character and his riveting gaze. Burton was obviously intimately familiar with the text as his rendition of Morlar is, to say the least, riveting.

The apocryphal elements added by the director, the cataclysmic disasters vastly improve the story's big-screen appeal, even if they were a bit of a departure from the text. The director simplifies the text by only indirectly referring to Morlar's political agenda. To follow the text in this would be setting up an entirely different story and would distract from the immediacy of the peril Morlar represents for the inspector and the psychiatrist.

The "tongue in cheek" manner in which these two meet serves to show a comprehensive understanding of the text, it gives clear notice (to those familiar with the book) the text cannot realistically be followed in every way. "I'm sorry I was expecting a man." the inspector explains his reaction to her. "That's alright, I was expecting an English Inspector." She responds. This, of course, was a reference to the characters as they appeared in the book.

This is a well directed film, making sense of a difficult text in an acceptable time frame. Richard Burton was an excellent choice as Morlar, he has a dominating presence that lends well to the character. These things along with an excellent rendition of a sensational, compelling story make the Medusa Touch one of the best suspense films ever.

"The Medusa Touch" is a typical seventies "devil conspiracy" movie like the popular "The Exorcist" and "The Omen" series combined with the typical paranoia and disaster movies between "Earthquake" and "Airport". The late Richard Burton plays an obsessed psychic who tries to convince a psychiatrist (Lee Remick) of his demonic power to kill people and to cause disasters just by the strength of his thoughts. Being a victim of an assassination and a coma patient in a hospital, his mad thoughts are causing even worse attacks on buildings that are causing the death of hundreds of people. French cop Lino Ventura, working as a guest policeman in London, tries to find out the mystery of Burton's dark life.

Although there's not much action, this horror movie is thrilling and dominated by the convincing performances of the actors. There is a sinister atmosphere of terror and paranoia all around, and you expect the unexpected in every single moment. A fine psychological terror movie in typical seventies style that is worth being watched!

Any modern-day remake of Jack Gold's The Medusa Touch would probably skew much younger in its casting and energy-level, its plot fleshed out by race-against-time set-pieces. If Gold's version works significantly better than seems likely, it's largely because of its world-weariness and sense of crusty experience, allowing its melodramatic contrivances to seem like expressions of shared frustration and common anticipation of doom. Richard Burton is among the stiffest and intemperate of leading men, so it works pretty well to cast him as a man driven by those very qualities, allowed several vituperative rants about societal hypocrisy and the general mediocrity of people individually and collectively: the premise is that he has the capacity to destroy at will, from individuals who cross him, to planes that he pulls from the sky for the hell of it (the retrospective echo of 9/11 is impossible to shut out), or even beyond that, to tamper with the workings of manned space probes. Lino Ventura (his presence on the British police force amusingly attributed to an exchange program with the French) comes in to investigate after Burton's Morlar is attacked in his home and left for dead - the film dramatizes the fruits of his investigation in flashback, interspersed with the growing anxiety as Morlar clings to life against all odds, his malicious capacities and intents possibly intact. The extensive use of other establishment actors in small parts, the alertness to time and place, and the breadth of Morlar's fury (encompassing the family, the education system, the law, the church, etc.) gives the film an unlikely symbolic force, allowing the character to embody whatever undiagnosed or unaddressed ills are slowly poisoning us. At the risk of auteur-seeking excess, it's thus tempting to see the film as a companion piece to Gold's sensational The Reckoning, which dramatizes a very different form of rage-filled triumph over the English establishment.

This supernatural thriller deals with John Morlar (Richard Burton) , while he's watching a British television broadcast an anchorman explains that American astronauts are trapped in orbit around the moon. Suddenly someone in Morlar's room picks up a figurine and strikes him on the head repeatedly. His blood splatters the television screen. French Detective-Inspector Brunel (Lino Ventura) along with his helper (Michael Byrne) arrive at Morlar's flat to start the criminal investigation. At first he thinks Morlar is dead, but soon he hears him breathe. As the man was struck over the head and being admitted to a hospital . Meantime, weird disasters befall the surrounding city . At the hospital, Morlar is hooked up to life support systems, one machine in particular monitors the activity of his battered brain . It seems that despite his unconscious state, the man is using his telekinetic powers to will things to happen. As Morlar states : ¨I am the man with the power to create catastrophe¨, as he has the power to move objects , to cause the death of anyone who stands in his way . Richard Burton is the man with the medusa touch ... he has the power to create catastrophe! . As he possesses a powerful gift , Telekinesis : A mental force that enables this man to move objects and control events. Science cannot explain the awesome power of the mind. And nothing can control it ! .

This horror-style story contains intriguing events, thriller , chiller , suspense , tension and disaster images . Main and support cast are pretty good , as Richard Burton playing the telekinetic novelist who causes disasters simply by thinking about them , he's top-notch , especially when scathingly giving a vitriolic disection of his faithless wife , but the real starring is the French Lino Ventura who is terrific as the stubborn police inspector . Support cast is magnificent with plenty of notorious British secondaries , such as : Michael Hordern , Alan Badel , Gordon Jackson , Michael Byrne , Derek Jacobi , Robert Lang , Robert Flemyng, Philip Stone , Malcolm Tierney , Jeremy Brett and Harry Andrews .

It displays a thrilling and exciting musical score by Michael J. Lewis . As well as colorful and appropriate cinematography by Arthur Ibbetson . The motion picture was professionally directed by Jack Gold. Jack was born in London and being a prestigious director and producer , known for Bofors guns (1968) , The Reckoning (1970) , Man Friday (1975) , Aces high (1976) , The Medusa touch (1978), The Chain (1984) , Escape from Sobibor (1987), and Goodnight, Mister Tom (1998). ¨The Medusa Touch (1978) is a rehash of the catastrophe genre along with supernatural powers clichés in which the splendid casting stands out . Rating : 6.5/10, nice and entertaining . It's a fairly watchable and breathtaking film and it results to be a good treatment of telekinesis theme along with disaster movies. Enthusiasts of horrific hokum will enjoy themselves ehile cynics chuckle . Essential and indispensable watching for Lino Ventura, Lee Remick and Richard Burton fans.