Customer Reviews

The Fury [VHS]

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

THE FURY

(USA - 1978)

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Theatrical soundtrack: Mono

Dismissed at the time of its initial release as a mishmash of themes and genres, time has been kind to THE FURY, Brian De Palma's visually spectacular adaptation of the novel by John Farris. An ex-government agent (Kirk Douglas) seeks the help of a young girl (Amy Irving) with incredible psychic abilities to help locate his son (Andrew Stevens), who has extraordinary powers of his own and has been kidnapped by an ultra-secret organization who plan to use his talents for their own sinister purposes.

Farris' own script has a neat symmetry, encompassing Middle Eastern terrorism, government conspiracies, psychic horror, and a series of Grand Guignol death scenes, orchestrated to a turn by De Palma whose growing confidence as a filmmaker sees him fully engage with the concept of Pure Cinema which has characterized much of his work ever since.

Highlighted by John Williams' magnificent score (a genuinely eerie composition, one of the best of his career), the film opens slowly, builds momentum, and culminates in a breathtaking sequence which closes the movie on a note of screaming hysteria (the final thirteen shots have been celebrated and vilified in equal measure by disbelieving audiences ever since the movie first opened!). De Palma's technical precision is matched by his excellent cast, including John Cassavetes, Charles Durning and Carrie Snodgress, all of whom loan these outrageous proceedings a gravity which lesser actors might have scorned. Look quickly for a very young Daryl Hannah in an early pre-stardom role.

Exuberant and glossy, this DePalma follow-up to CARRIE is a telekinetic feast. Incredulous and mind-blowing, this is a great pop movie with some fabulous DePalma sequences -- Amy Irving's flashback on the stairs is a dizzying and imaginative plot-mover; the opening assault will take you by complete surprise. In addition, there are some affecting performances mixed in among the hambone, but effective, performances of Kirk Douglas and especially John Cassavettes, who plays this role as if he is Rosemary's husband all grown up and evil. Carrie Snodgress is truly moving in a way too small role, and Amy Irving glows in those richly textured close-ups DePalma does so well. The story is compelling, if a bit convoluted, what with its undertone of doom and a special-effects romance that never plays itself out. If you love engrossing suspense/horror films, you can't miss with this one. John Williams' dense and lyrical score adds a mesmerizing dimension to the increasingly gory proceedings...And the finale is supremely satisfying.

Pleasure yes, but hardly a guilty one. This is De Palma's most staggering display of moxie -- his attempt to out-Hitchcock Hitchcock at every turn. Oh sure, the story's kind of a "Carrie" retread, and the plot doesn't make perfect sense, but who cares? This movie is an exercise in sheer technique, nowhere on display more than the classic ending -- a spewing, multi-angle Grande Guignol spectacle that gives nothing but satisfaction. My favorite actor, John Cassavetes -- maybe the only villain in film history who keeps his broken arm in a black sling -- plays it for all it's worth. This is a gloriously bloody movie.

There are spoilers throughout this review. The movie's 30 years old; I think the moratorium on spoilers has expired.

Brian DePalma has a reputation as a "style over substance" kind of director as well as an imitator of Alfred Hitchcock. This reputation is not wholly deserved; he sometimes transcends this image ("Carrie", "The Untouchables"). However, when he reverts back to full-blown Hitchcock on Acid mode, look out! That's exactly what DePalma does in "The Fury."

The story, called "convoluted" by many, is nothing of the kind! Here's the story, in its entirety: An ex-government agent (Douglas) has a teenage son (Stevens) who possesses extraordinary psychic powers. The government agency kidnaps the son and attempts (but fails) to kill the father. This all happens in the first 10 minutes, and the father spends the rest of the movie (two tedious hours) trying to find his son with the aid of a teenage girl (Irving) with psychic powers and a telepathic link to his son. In the last 10 minutes, they find his son, then both father and son die, then the girl kills the Bad Guy (Cassavetes) responsible for the kidnapping. The end.

Probably the reason so many viewers think this ridiculously simplistic story is "convoluted" is because of all the superfluous scenes we are treated to in the intervening two hours. Like:

Kirk Douglas breaking into the apartment of a bickering middle-aged couple and the little old lady who lives with them, the cutely-named "Mother Knuckles," painting his hair with white shoe polish, putting a pillow in his pants, flirting with Mother Knuckles, tying up the couple on their couch in front of the television (ham-fisted social commentary, anyone?), and then leaving, only to be immediately spotted by the Bad Guys in spite of his disguise. So why the heck was so much time spent on this ridiculous narrative detour?

Amy Irving at her new School For Teenage Psychics, twirling around her white wicker-and-flowered wallpaper bedroom, taking long walks in the park with Charles Durning, playing Frisbee with a dog (in slow motion, naturally), and making big gooey sundaes with the Mad Housewife herself, Carrie Snodgress (pay careful attention to this scene to take delight in Irving's nauseating habit of constantly digging into a bowl of toppings with her fingers, sprinkling the stuff on her sundae, licking her fingers, then digging the newly-moist fingers back into another bowl of toppings; she does this half a dozen times and makes it virtually impossible to pay any attention to the conversation, which doesn't contain any imperative dialogue, anyway). Again, what is the purpose of this long sequence, other than letting us know that for a brief while, Irving's character gets to be happy? Admittedly, you need SOME "down time" in a thriller, but two freakin' hours of it? Come on.

The superfluous scenes would be bad enough, but what makes them even worse is the fact that absolutely ESSENTIAL scenes are missing. For instance, after Stevens's character is kidnapped and taken to the compound, he apparently undergoes brainwashing techniques that turn him into a homicidal psychopath. But we aren't SHOWN his conversion; instead, to make up for this MAJOR deficiency, some obviously dubbed-in-at-a-later-date expository dialogue is played over scenes of him pole-vaulting. (???) Amazingly, even though they are specifically trying to fill story gaps, they don't say anything that actually accomplishes that purpose! We're given some gobbledygook about how he gets really upset whenever his physical prowess doesn't match his psychic powers. This is supposed to explain why he later makes a carnival ride go berserk, flinging riders 50 feet in the air, and why he turns his girlfriend into a whirling dervish!

Even when the scenes actually could serve a narrative purpose, DePalma drags them on WAY too long, then doesn't give us any pay-off. An example: We already know Irving's character is psychic when some folks from the Psychic School come to her high school to demonstrate that people's Alpha waves can actually run an electric train. Yes, I know you're all remembering the many, many times you witnessed such demonstrations at your high school. Right. Anyway, at this point anyone with an IQ over 80 who has actually ever seen a movie - any movie - knows where this scene is going. Amy Irving will get the electrodes strapped to her forehead and make the damn thing jump the tracks with the force of her Alpha-ness. What you might not be able to predict is just how excruciatingly l-o-n-g DePalma drags out the wholly inevitable denouement. It feels like HOURS as the train goes faster and faster, with a dubbed-in whining sound getting higher and higher (in case we didn't get it) and reaction shots of every single person in the room with the patented "WTF?!?" look on their faces before finally the train de-rails. Now, this scene, protracted as it was, might have actually served SOME purpose if an action had flowed directly from it, ie: the doctor from the school signing up Irving then and there. Incredibly, nothing of the sort happens! We have to wait a few scenes for Irving to tell her mother that she wants to go to a "special school" and it is only after she arrives that we know this is in fact the same school that did the train demonstration. HELLO, this is BAD storytelling, folks.

And then there's John Cassavetes. Holy cow. For those who aren't familiar with Cassavetes, he was essentially the first independent filmmaker, making his own movies on ultra-low budgets that didn't toe the studio line. The films were critically lauded but not seen by many people. Supposedly he only acted in studio pictures in order to make money to finance his own ventures, and while that may be nominally true, he DID at least seem to invest something in many of his roles, ie: his early television one-shots and "The Dirty Dozen." In "The Fury," however, the man sleep-walks through his role; at one point during a "suspenseful" chase scene in which he's in the backseat of a car, his head is clearly just lolling backwards as if it's Nap Time. You can hardly blame the guy - it's a Snidely Whiplash role with absolutely no nuance or shading, and fer crying out loud, he's blown up at the end - but the fact is that Cassavetes's zombified performance adds even more badness to the movie.

Wow, there is so much more to dislike about this movie. In the interest of wrapping things up, I'll go to bullet points:

*Every time a character outlives his or her usefulness (to the scenarist, to propel the plot along), he or she dies violently. Every. Time. Once again, bad writing.

*Right before psychics die, their eyes glow an unearthly blue and they transfer all their powers to the psychic who is cradling their head in their lap. Thank you, Brian DePalma, for this newfound knowledge.

*Cars do not, in fact, use safety glass (that spiderwebs), but rather plate glass (that shatters). This is because the latter looks so much cooler when photographed.

*You'd think it would be heaven to be married to Mr. Carlson, but no.

*When it's important to the plot that anybody who touches Amy Irving starts to bleed, they bleed. When it's important to the plot that people be allowed to touch her, they don't.

*All of the "comic relief" scenes are uniformly dire.

*Could we at least be given some hint of why the government thinks that having a teenage psychic is so important? "The Chinese don't have one, the Soviets don't have one..." maybe because they see limited military applications for making electric trains run off Alpha waves and accurately assessing that the guy behind them is looking at "three wavy lines."

Two stars instead of one, because on a technical level, the movie is competent (ie: there's some good photography, and Williams's score, while imitating Bernard Herrmann too slavishly, is not bad, if also not great). The bottom line: Not good enough to be fun, but not bad enough to be fun either. Don't waste your time.

"Fury" is something of a sequel for director Brian DePalma to the critical and box office success he enjoyed with "Carrie."

Plot is inconsequential. I could make no sense of it. A man's son falls into the hands of an unexplained secret government agency who wants to use the son's psychokinetic powers for purposes not explicated. The father finds another psychic to help find his son, and she too becomes wanted by this secret agency.

Kirk Douglas proves he's a middle-aged stud doing his own stunts on an Israeli beach and the streets of Chicago. Amy Irving displays a narrow acting range-- from confused, hurt and withdrawn to surprised rage at the end. The best scenes show her in "psychic" mode. She stands, looking around, as if in an Imaz theater, at events from the past scroll around her. This is vintage DePalma, the king of the camera angle.

The ending is campy horror schlock, and seen from every possible angle imaginable. This movie had potential to be so much more. Wooden acting, cheesy dialogue and a murky plot ruin a beautifully-filmed movie.

One cannot go wrong with Kirk Douglas. Very different. Intense acting and a unique story line. Very interesting.

A very good motion picture with an all star cast that includes Nancy Allen, Kirk Douglas and Angie Dickinson. A Brian DePalma film that means very scary movie.

A secretive dark government snakes its way through both the
narrative as well as the character portrayals ... an abduction
orchestrated by a black-suited leader with a penchant for cigarettes ... the X-Files, right?
Not so fast; Brian DePalma and John Farris were the artists
for this motion picture, not Mr. S. King or Mr. C. Carter.
And when I say 'artists', I mean just that; not some mass
market hype-a-rama telling you the film is important and that
you WILL see it at any cost.
Take my word for it: At the price offered by Amazon, you'll
hopefully (affordably) order a copy, and take a dose or three
of this maligned and overlooked gem. Sure, it may look 1978-
dated, but as you watch it, you'll see how widely its influence
still trickles into the craft of film.

This review concentrates both on the quality of the DVD and that of the film itself. For the most part, the picture is clear and evenly lit. However, there are about 14 scenes where the picture quality is devastatingly poor. A constant "popcorn" effect during these scenes makes the average VHS quality look superlative. It is somewhat jarring since in some scenes as camera angles change, the quality of the image changes drastically, whilst still within the same scene. Night scenes and close-ups are especially horrid.

Now the film....Don't get too hung up on plot. In fact, I would suggest watching the first ten minutes then fast forwarding about 25 minutes, then stopping once again and fast forwarding for another 15 minutes. You get the picture. There are so many scenes that serve no purpose. Not only do they not advance the plot, but they actually weigh down the picture. They also are not particuarly stylish and are sometimes actually painful to focus on. DePalma tries his hand at comedy in a few of these scenes with nauseating results. Not only are the actors ill-suited for comedy bits, but they clash with the seriousness of the main characters struggle. And forget about character development...you'd be better off creating a little background for each character on your own. Andrew Stevens' character supposedly went through some kind of metamorphosis in this film, and thank god some other characters chat about it casually because who the heck knows how he got from point A to point B.

In addition, Pino Donaggio and Bernard Herrmann are sorely missed. John William's score, though dramatic, is only dramatically boring.

The two stars are for the well-orchestrated paragon institute escape scene and amy irving's telekinesis scenes, and depalma's selection of carrie snodgress for a small role.

This one is only for DEPALMA heads. You'll have a good time picking up on DePalma ripping off his own films and spotting DePalma regulars such as Denis Franz, William Finley, & Charles Durning as well no-names at that time, Laura Innes, Darryl Hannah, Melody Thomas Scott and James Belushi. If you're looking for DePalma's best, try Blow Out!, Carrie, Dressed to Kill, or Obsession.

Not much to say about this one. Pretty typical De Palma. Fairly lame plot, though not as convoluted as normal, redeemed by some good set-pieces, camera movements and violence. Performances are adequate across the board, if not exactly great. (I particularly like Douglas.) It could use a bit less down time though, that's for sure. No reason why this movie should be a full 2 hours long. Still, the payoff is pretty good, even if De Palma's style is sometimes comically overwrought. Overall 'The Fury' is a pretty good counterpart to its now more remembered knockoff 'Scanners'. Nothing terribly remarkable about either of them, but they're fun action-horror-sci-fi drama things.

This movie is probably most famous for the exploding guy, and he definitely ain't bad. The best part about it is how overwhelmingly redundant the scene. Ya know how they like to show the same explosion multiple times from the different angles and whatnot in movies, slipping back a second in time again and again. Here they show the guy exploding [wait for it]..........[wait for it].......... [NOW!!!]... THIRTEEN TIMES!!!!!!!! That has got to be a record. It's not as cool as the exploding head in 'Scanners' but it's still pretty cool.

Grade: B-