The Medusa Touch (Imprint)

The Medusa Touch (Imprint) (Blu-Ray) (*)

Out of Stock

Screened, competed or awarded at:
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
English ( Dolby Linear PCM )
English ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
Australia ( Blu-Ray/Region A/B/C )

Running Time:
109 min

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (1.78:1)

Special Features:
Behind the scenes
Cast/Crew Interview(s)
Commentary
Featurette
Interactive Menu
Photo Gallery
Scene Access
Special Edition
Trailer(s)
Remastered

Movie filmed in 1978 and produced in:
France ( France, Benelux )
United Kingdom ( Great Britain, Ireland )

Directed By:
Jack Gold

Written By:
John Briley
Peter Greenaway

Actors:
Richard Burton ..... John Morlar
Lino Ventura ..... Brunel
Lee Remick ..... Doctor Zonfeld
Harry Andrews ..... Assistant Commissioner
Alan Badel ..... Barrister
Marie-Christine Barrault ..... Patricia
Jeremy Brett ..... Edward Parrish
Michael Hordern ..... Atropos
Gordon Jackson ..... Doctor Johnson
Michael Byrne ..... Duff
Derek Jacobi ..... Townley
Robert Lang ..... Pennington
Avril Elgar ..... Mrs. Pennington
John Normington ..... Schoolmaster
Robert Flemyng ..... Judge McKinley

Synopsis:

A supernatural thriller about a novelist , who possesses the mental power to control life and death. John Morlar (Richard Burton), a well-known novelist, is savagely attacked in his London flat. Barely alive, he is taken to hospital. Detective Brunel (Lino Ventura) is assigned to the case. He comes across Morlar's journal, which leads him to a mysterious woman named Zonfeld (Lee Remick) who is Morlar's doctor. Zonfeld discloses that her patient is obsessed. He feels he bears an awesome telekinetic power - the power to 'will' destruction and death. He can make airplanes crash, buildings crumble, start raging fires and unleash mighty floods. He believes he possesses the gift of evil, and dangerously demonstrates his power. What at first seems preposterous, soon becomes sickeningly real. Morlar is able to wreak havoc at will. Brunel desperately wants to stop the next tragedy, but can he kill this man? If released from his mortal confines, how far can the power of his mind roam?

In The Medusa Touch Brunel (Lino Ventura), a French detective on temporary assignment with Scotland Yard, investigates a mysterious series of disasters. The uncanny events begin happening shortly after writer John Morlar (Richard Burton) was hit over the head by an unknown intruder and rendered comatose. Slowly, Brunel begins to connect the strange things that are happening in the world with the deranged dreams of the comatose Morlar. He gets the final clue he needs from Morlar's reluctant psychiatrist, Dr. Zonfield (Lee Remick), who holds the key to Morlar's past. Once it is discovered that Morlar has the ability to think horrible thoughts and make them come true, Brunel and Zonfield must take off with dispatch to a London cathedral, where the Queen is scheduled to make an appearance - but Morlar is thinking about the cathedral, and it is crumbling fast. Well-liked in Britain, this movie did not do well in the U.S. -From the second shot in Jack Gold's The Medusa Touch - a close-up of a print of Edvard Munch's painting 'The Scream,' in a study where a man is watching a tragedy unfolding on a lunar mission - this is one eerie and unsettling movie. From what seems to be a murder scene (but proves to be something much more complicated), we shift across twin landscapes, of multiple disasters spread across the past life of the victim, John Morlar (Richard Burton), and see hints of some recent tragedy and destruction in London. The film unfolds in such a way that the two separate layers of death and disaster, and the threat and paranoia that come with them - one vertical, out of Morlar's past, and the other horizontal, in the here-and-now as the characters move about London - intersect for the denouement, which is one of the most exciting and one of the more horrific seen in this kind of movie. Lino Ventura and Lee Remick are coolly credible as two characters on the periphery of Morlar's life, trying to understand what is happening, and it is difficult to imagine an actor other than Richard Burton who could bring the degree of pathos, anger, and dignity that he encompasses within his portrayal of Morlar. The plot resembles an old Outer Limits script entitled 'The Man With The Power,' which was produced with Donald Pleasence as the tormented possessor of psychokinetic power, but his was a more sad and sympathetic character, even when his subconscious mind was triggering peoples' deaths - Burton's Morlar evokes a far more complex range of emotions here, including raw fear when, at the denouement, his worst destructive impulses manifest themselves, seemingly without any way of stopping them. The film's believability is helped greatly by the presence in supporting roles of Harry Andrews, Gordon Jackson, and other top British acting talent, and the script's and the director's occasional display of a nasty sense of humor, such as in the flashbacks to Morlar's relationship to his parents and the circumstances of their deaths, and a scene involving a bickering couple arguing over a fish. There is also a decidedly topical, Watergate-era slant given to the plot as the investigating detective is told that his superiors want the assault/attempted murder case wrapped up quickly and quietly, because of Morlar's supposed possession of incriminating facts about government and business leaders - that elements is almost lost, however, amid the ever heightening destruction depicted in the story as the time-line of Morlar's life advances to the present, and the suspense that comes with it as the nature of Morlar's final plan becomes clear. Thanks to the presence of Lee Remick in the cast and the script's suggestion at one point - in a frankly delightful scene with Michael Hordern - of a possible mystical (or demonic) source for Morlar's abilities, The Medusa Touch was compared with The Omen and other horror films of its era depicting demonic manifestations; in fact, it's a better, more rational chiller than The Omen or its sequels, closer in spirit and substance to science fiction of the Quatermass variety, though not remotely as inventive as that esteemed cycle of productions written by Nigel Kneale. Though it was very successful in England, The Medusa Touch never found an audience in America, possibly because its story, images, and characters were too English to capture the imaginations of American filmgoers. The script's explanation of the movie's title - ironically, one of its numerous strong attributes - probably didn't help either, being rather vague and rooted as it was in classical mythology rather than more conventional and easily understood notions of demonism and Christian imagery.

John Morlar is watching the British television broadcast when an anchorman states that American astronauts are trapped in orbit around the moon. Suddenly someone in Morlar's room picks up a figurine and strikes him on the head repeatedly. His blood splatters the television screen. A French police inspector, Brunel, arrives at Morlar's apartment to begin an investigation. At first he thinks Morlar is dead, but soon he hears him breathe. At the hospital, Morlar is hooked up to life support systems, one machine in particular monitors the activity of his battered brain. Brunel discovers that Morlar has been in psychological analysis because of his history of being witness to many disasters, other people's disasters. Dr. Zonfeld, Morlar's analyst, explains that Morlar's delusions had begun when he was a child. He believed that he had caused a hated nanny's death. Morlar's childhood delusions were reinforced at a resort when he overheard his parents discussing him with disapproval. When his parents strolled on top of a cliff, Morlar watched as the family car suddenly pushed them off the cliff to their deaths. One evening, Brunel pores over the mysteries of Morlar's diary and through his scrapbook of disastrous events. Gradually, Brunel begins to develop an opinion of what Morlar was like and begins to wonder if he is chasing a murderer or a victim.

This product was added to our catalog on Thursday 17 April, 2025.