Undo / Redo in blogger is a real pain in the ass, you know? I had a big write up about Psychic here, and poof - it just disappeared because I was dumb and tried to change one line. So I'm pissed, and this is going to be maybe short and probably not good. Psychic wasn't an outright bad movie, but it's not one I feel the need to revisit again in any great detail.
When I was reviewing my blog entries up to this point, I noticed a big 1990s-shaped hole in what had been published up until now - and yeah, movies from the 90s probably won't be particularly well represented here. It's just not an era that I particularly care about. I don't know if it's from me being an 80s kid and the 90s just don't have the same nostalgic value for me or whatever, but I'm not particularly interested in them. My general (*very* generic) breakdowns for genre films:
60s and earlier - Classic, but also kind of isolated in their age/time frame - old enough that you are forced to engage with them in a different way.
70s - Cool and adventurous, sometimes exploitative. Most in line with my personal tastes, and the sensibilities that I appreciate.
80s - Nostalgic, fun, or fun-bad. Over the top.
90s - Just kind of bad. 80s hangover, and it's starting to get stale. CGI starts to ruin everything.
00s - Nothing too exciting. Kind of stuck in a rut. Figuring out the transition to digital. Both in the medium of shooting (a lot of it looks bad) and what it cinema means on a macro level in a changing world.
10s - Mostly bad/predictable mainstream fare, although some crazy stuff makes it's way through. Exciting in terms of what's coming out of the independent market, although it takes some searching and/or research to find the real goods.
And this is just me, and it's obviously very subjective. And it's a *super* generalization. But it gets mostly to the point that I just don't care as much about movies from the 90s - 2000s. And honestly, they aren't well represented on Amazon Prime or Netflix either, so I assume there are a lot of likeminded people out there. I wish they had a "by decade" filter on those sites, as that's (after genre) generally the best indication as to what kind of film I want to watch. Anyways, I wanted to find a 90s film, and Psychic was the first one that came up.
Psychic stars Zach Galligan and Catherine Mary Stewart, so at least there were some recognizable faces there. (And I'm just finding out now, but it's also directed by George Mihalka, who did the original My Bloody Valentine. So that's cool.) But I had never heard of the film, which having watched it, makes sense. It's very middle of the road, with just enough goofiness to make it vaguely enjoyable, but not enough to make anyone talk about it.
My Synopsis: Patrick Costello (Galligan) is a college student who also happens to be a pretty darn good psychic. He's got a big time thing for his psychology professor Laurel Young (Stewart), and he's cringeworthily insistent on dating her. Oh, and there's a serial killer murdering women around town.(I'd guess Boston, since Patrick's roommate has every piece of wearable Celtic merchandise ever made available to the public.) Patrick is having spooky visions about the killings, and thinks he knows who the killer is... but that killer lives in Laurel's building! Zoinks! And he's also dating her! Double Zoinks! Are Patrick's visions on the level? Or is his jealousy affecting his judgement? Also, if you're a psychic, don't try to help the cops - they'll probably just think you're the killer.
Elaborate Genre: Serial Killer / Thriller
Overall: Eh? Despite me ragging on the 90s a little bit earlier, I kind of enjoyed the 90s-ness on display here. That goes for the overall style of the film, as well as the story telling techniques/choices. Dumb things happen and characters don't behave realistically at all, and it all happens abruptly. It's pretty obvious that Psychic is from a different era. It approaches things differently - there's a vague attempt at realism, but it never tries to explain itself. For that alone, it was a vaguely interesting watch.
Costello is an okay character, and Galligan has a certain charm in the role. But the character is just doing dumb shit on a consistent basis. Like I don't think outright asking a professor on a date was okay even in the long ago 90s - I always thought those trysts developed from "study sessions" or whatever. But in his defense, it *totally* works. They go on one date, then he brings her flowers, and BANG - they're totally doing it. And at some point, he decides he'll just go ahead and investigate the serial killings, because why not? Usually, these big plot points are explained - but in Psychic they just happen.
Some other things I learned watching Psychic:
- if you try to open a locked door for a long enough time, eventually it will open
- there are only two tattoo parlors, and they keep detailed records on who gets what tattoo
- college professors often have overnight office hours
- snow plows are like trains, and cannot stop no matter what
Gore-wise? Not much happening here. Our killer is a strangler, so there isn't an awful lot of blood or anything. The killing scenes are still somewhat troubling - he chokes his victims with a belt, generally during sex, so that's kind of unsettling. But those scenes are often overly-stylized (we really only see them through Patrick's dreams) and aren't super graphic.
I think Silence of the Lambs sort of fucked things up for serial killer movies of this era. It was such a huge success because it brought a grim sort of reality to the genre - something that movies in its wake tried to copy, but it's just not easy to do. Psychic kind of straddles that "seriousness" line - some of it tries to be realistic, but some of it ends up just being goofy. That's not a particularly good mix.
But here's the thing - I enjoyed my time watching Psychic. Galligan and Stewart have good screen presences. And even though the script is pretty lame and there's not much tension or anything, there's just enough goofiness to keep things moving along. Things happen abruptly - and while it kind of bugs you that there's not much of an attempt to explain them, it at least keeps things moving at a good pace. So I don't know, I wouldn't outright recommend it, but I'm not mad at it either. It's brainless semi-fun.
I would maybe kind of recommend this film.
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