Film 13/52: The Medusa Touch (1978)


I first heard about The Medusa Touch in 2019. I was intrigued by a reference to an airliner crashing into a skyscraper, and after watching the trailer, placed an order for an import Blu Ray. It's been in our collection of to-be-watched films since then, so it was an easy selection for this series.

The film starts off with novelist John Morlar (Richard Burton) watching the events of a manned space disaster unfold live on television, during which someone he knows comes into his apartment and bludgeons him to death with a Napoleon statue. Or so we are led to believe. A French investigator shows up on the scene, and is surprised to find that Burton is not quite dead. As he investigates the crime, he is led to Morlar's shrink, played by The Omen's Lee Remick. We soon discover that Morlar believed he had the power to control catastrophic events involving people who have wronged him. As he lies in a coma in the hospital, through flashbacks we learn of multiple examples where people surrounding him suffered in what appear to be coincidental accidents, which according to his journals and his psychiatrist, he has somehow willed to happen. This allows for many interesting set-pieces, including the aforementioned plane crash. It's particularly interesting in that one doesn't expect Morlar to be taken out in the first scene, for all sakes and purposes, though he does show up throughout the flashbacks, and I assume (though heavily bandaged) in the hospital scenes as well. Things escalate as the investigator realizes that Morlar is still controlling events from the hospital bed, and he makes a last-ditch attempt to stop him before more people are killed. The film ends on a powerful note that I imagine came as a surprise to many audience members. I know I would have loved it had I seen it as an 8 year-old. And to think for all these years I only gave Sir Lew Grade love for his other 1978 film that I was very familiar with and fond of — Capricorn One!

Richard Burton was an interesting choice for Morlar; I think I might have preferred Patrick McGoohan in the role. In addition to Remick, a number of familiar faces turn up, including Gordon Jackson (MacDonald from The Great Escape), Harry Andrews (who I recognized from a bit part in Superman), and Michael Byrne (Vogel from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). While it's by no means a great film, I think it can be appreciated alongside the telekinesis-horror films of the 1970s (along the lines of Carrie, The Fury, etc.), and I've always been a sucker for an ending like this one offers. 

I'm not quite sure how this one hadn't gotten my attention sooner; the only thing I can think is that it either didn't get the television airplay that so many other films did, or it wasn't presented as a horror flick. But the latter seems hard to believe, particularly with Medusa in the title, which surely would have caught my eye. Another worthy entry for our big-screen 52 Pick Up series!


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