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Psychic Killer
[Dark Sky Films]
1974; color
Directed by Raymond Danton
Starring: Paul Burke, Jim Hutton, Julie Adams, Nehemiah Persoff, Neville Brand, Aldo Ray, Rod Cameron, Judith Brown & Della Reese
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Psychic Killer is a bit off the beaten track as far as '70s horror flicks go and the only one I know of with a subplot revolving around the pop science of parapsychology. (I won't go into an involved description of what parapsychology is but basically it involves auras and other psychic phenomena.) The film is about a man named Albert who, after being wrongly convicted and sentenced to a crime he did not commit, ends up somewhat insane and in a prison mental ward. After he gets better enough to be put back in general population he befriends a guy who seems to be equal parts crazy, mystical and righteous. The guy has some sort of special power that, a day or two after he dies, gets transferred to Albert through an amulet and what looks like a spellbook of some sort that the dead guy apparently willed to him. The power allows Albert to have out of body experiences where he projects himself to various locations and violently kills those who wronged him in the past. (It involves going into a deep trance. To the outside world he appears asleep, and is even declared legally dead at least two or three times in the movie during these states.) And, apparently, more than just a handful of people fit into this category. Once seemingly unconnected people begin dying in gruesome and, by all rights, unusual ways in a matter of only a few days, a police lieutenant figures out all the people had either a direct or indirect connection to Albert and puts him under surveillance. This leads to nothing at first, because all the cops see is that he sleeps in a chair for hours at a time without moving. Undaunted, the lieutenant calls on the doctor who successfully treated Albert when he was locked up. (Who happens to be Julie Adams from Creature From The Black Lagoon.) She tries to talk to Albert but he quickly realizes she's in cahoots with the cops - in fact, she beds the lieutenant within a day of meeting him - and refuses to let on about anything. She turns to her parapsychologist friend for help and he tells her (and the cop) about the out of body incidents he suspects Albert is having. While the cops still have no way of linking Albert directly to any of the crimes, the lieutenant figures out a way to beat him at his own game, which he does shortly thereafter. Written by Greydon Clark (director of Black Shampoo and Satan's Cheerleaders) and directed by '70s TV director Ray Danton (this was his last film before moving to TV), Psychic Killer is definitely worth checking out for fans of vintage horror.
—the Kommandant
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