Psychic Movies

This is a gentle, innocent film about the reflections of an aging man, who returns to his home town after the death of his best friend. Memories of life at age 11 floods back as it was a magical time that changed his life. Three 11 year old children share their lives. Carol and Bobby have a special affection for one another including sharing a kiss "by which all others will be measured". Bobby lives with his mother, a bitter, vain woman who looks for pleasures for herself without sharing much with her son. Into their lives comes a mysterious new boarder, who befriends the boy but generates distrust from the mother. As time passes, the man and boy share confidences and special powers are revealed. The man warns the boy to be on the lookout for the "lowmen", who were seeking him. The two share a summer's adventures and come to love one another before the inevitable happens.

Linda Hanson has a beautiful house, a loving husband and two adorable daughters. Her life is perfect, until the day she gets the devastating news that her husband Jim has died in a car accident. When she wakes up the next morning to find him alive and well, she assumes it as all a dream. Or was it? Suddenly, her perfect life is turned upside down as she begins a desperate scramble to save her family and uncover the truth.

For the rare few that have not seen this, I don't want to ruin the great twists of this movie, but this flick illustrates the point I often make about how ghosts either don't know they are dead, or are stuck in this world because of an attachment to a horrible event in their life. Ghosts in this movie use a psychic boy to resolve issues that keep them haunting places and people. I found some scenes, like when one little girl pukes in the boys bedroom pretty darned scary. It did a good job of scaring you with subtleties like cold rooms, fleeting shadows of children moving around, and so on. Very well acted and produced!

Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze are the passionate lovers whose romance is undone when the latter is murdered during a bungled hit arranged by a rival. The clever concept extends outward into comedy (Swayze's character communicates through a sassy medium played by Whoopi Goldberg, who won an Oscar for this role), horror (the afterlife is populated by hell-bound demons and the like), and romantic complications (a handsome suitor, played by Tony Goldwyn, comes on to Moore while Swayze's spirit is still hanging around). Ghost is a careful balancing act of strong commercial elements, but at heart it is a timeless Hollywood tearjerker that easily gets under one's skin.

For all its flaws, Powder is still worthwhile for attempting to be unique and well intentioned. Powder is a welcome step off the beaten path with sufficient strengths to balance its weaknesses. Fantasy and drama combine in the story of a teenager known as Powder for his snow-white skin. Powder is introduced into a tiny Texas community after spending his entire life in his grandparents' basement. He's a wise genius, but an outcast, alienated by those who misunderstand and fear him. When a schoolmaster (Mary Steenburgen) and science teacher (Jeff Goldblum) discover that Powder has a capacity for empathic insight and possesses the power to control electricity, the unusual boy becomes a tragic Christ-like figure -peaceful, prophetic, and perhaps too good to survive in the real world.

Brian De Palma's complicated horror story from 1978 never did come together correctly, but it still has pockets of real inspiration as only the director could conceive. Andrew Stevens and Amy Irving play teens with telekinetic powers that intelligence agencies want to harness, and Kirk Douglas stands between his kids and their nefarious exploiters. The film bogs down during Douglas's guilt-ridden, booze-fueled quest to find his son, but De Palma's elaborate, sometimes operatic violence and action sequences are genuinely mesmerizing.

Spielberg's gritty vision was freely adapted from a story by Philip K. Dick, with its central premise of "Precrime" law enforcement, totally reliant on three isolated human "precogs" capable (due to drug-related mutation) of envisioning murders before they're committed. As Precrime's confident captain, Tom Cruise preempts these killings like a true action hero, only to run for his life when he is himself implicated in one of the precogs' visions. Inspired by the brainstorming of expert futurists, Spielberg packs this paranoid chase with potential conspirators (Max Von Sydow, Colin Farrell), domestic tragedy, and a heartbreaking precog pawn (Samantha Morton), while Cruise's performance gains depth and substance with each passing scene.

The Dead Zone is based on a novel by Stephen King, directed by David Cronenberg. While it has great atmospheric eeriness and undeniably scary moments, The Dead Zone is at heart a sensitive and thoughtful portrayal of main character Johnny Smith's dilemma. Christopher Walken, king of the vaguely creepy, plays Smith, a man who awakens from a five-year coma with the very mixed blessing of second sight. At the mere touch of a hand, Smith is unwillingly launched into scenes of past and future terror. The Dead Zone wisely takes its time telling the story, and thus allows for some great performances.

Catharine Deane is a psychotherapist who is part of a revolutionary new treatment which allows her mind to literally enter the mind of her patients. Her experience in this method takes an unexpected turn when an FBI agent comes to ask for a desperate favour. They had just tracked down a notorious serial killer, Carl Stargher, whose MO is to abduct women one at a time and place them in a secret area where they are kept for about 40 hours until they are slowly drowned. Unfortunately, the killer has fallen into an irreversible coma which means he cannot confess where he has taken his latest victim before she dies. Now, Catherine Deane must race against time to explore the twisted mind of the killer to get the information she needs, but Stargher's damaged personality poses dangers that threaten to overwhelm her.

Marina , a blonde Southern belle with a clairvoyant streak, sees signs - a shooting star with two tails, a snowglobe that washes up on the beach, a wedding band inside of a fish - telling her that her true love is about to come ashore. And soon enough, a boat lands on the beach in front of her home; only the guy inside is a stout butcher from New York City named Leo. Still, portents are portents, and the next thing you know she's married and running barefoot around a butcher's shop in Greenwich Village, where she inspires various residents with her predictions. Leo, however, is creeped out by his wife's abilities, and encourages her to see Alex, a psychiatrist who works across the street. To placate him, she does - and soon begins to suspect that she's misread her signs and married the wrong man.