"Premonition" (aka "Head") is a living proof that you don't need much to make a decent horror film with a limited budget as long as you know what you're doing and you know how to built suspense and thrills without overcomplicating with your story. What appealed to me the most in this film was that it was a compelling drama with glances of horror rather than creatures/gore shocker show common in the 1970's. Disciple of one of the godfathers of the Independent Cinema, the late Robert Altman, the undervalued Alan Rudolph started his director career with this film which is far from everything he would make in the years to come (examples: the unconventional romcom "Choose Me; "Mortal Thoughts" (1991) and "Afterglow").
Anyway, to the heart of the matter. It tells the story of three musician friends who start to have recurring dreams that predict their deaths, and the probably cause in at least two of the guys is that they made some experimentations with a drug plant found by one of them during a mysterious expedition on an indigenous territory. The leader of the group desperately tries to make them stay sober and focus on their music but getting rid off of those images won't be that easy.
"Head" (as I prefer to call it) is a concrete drama about addiction and how it affects not only the addicted person but everyone around him. I think the horror, represented in the fuzzy, noisy and scary images of a group of small women slaying the men, is just a way to approach viewers from such a story. You care about the characters and what they go through, it looks real and not some imaginative and complex monstrosity. Rudolph doesn't need much to haunt you, sure it has that 1970's B horror movie kind of feel, stiff acting but there's some strong effects as well - the use of sound itself in the dreams and the expedition sequences are terrifying. I liked Carl Crow's performance as the main character, he was the most convincing on scene, and sad to know that it was his last performance - no much information about what happened to him except that he died at a young age.
There's plenty of things to be learned with this film, film students pay attention to it. It's conciseness is very hard to be found these days. The version available comes from a poor VHS version but manageable to watch nonetheless. 7/10
