Last Updated on July 27, 2021
By ERIC RED
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THE
FURY
(1978)
Director:
Brian DePalma.
Writer: John Farris. Based on his
novel.
Cast:
Kirk Douglas, John
Cassavettes, Amy Irving, Andrew Stevens.
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I love cross genre movies.
Something very cool happens when you take horror and mix it with another
genre. “NEAR DARK” came about when Kathryn and I decided to mix a vampire
film and a western. “THE FURY” was one of my favorite 70’s films. They
threw many genres into the mix with this fast paced psychic thriller…it’s a
horror action film, a chase film, a spy espionage film and a gory splatter
film on a grand scale.
“THE FURY,” was director
Brian DePalma’s kick ass follow up to “CARRIE” and he returned to the
subject of telekinesis in a big way, epic in scope and truly thrilling in
execution. It’s a super cinematic roller coaster ride with top-level
opulent studio production values, great performances, grand operatic
camerawork and balls to the wall pace. I saw it many times when it first
came out and have always loved this movie for its sheer moviemaking
exuberance and power. The story is about two
young people, Jillian (Amy Irving) and Robin (Andrew Stevens), who have
telepathic and telekinetic abilities to move objects and cause physical
destruction when angry. They’ve never met, yet share a psychic bond.
When
Robin by kidnapped to be developed as a weapon by a sinister shadow company
U.S. government agency led by a ruthless and powerful agent Childress (John Cassavettes), Robin’s capable secret agent father Peter (Kirk Douglass)
begins a relentless search for his son whose condition and whereabouts are
unknown. Peter enlists the aid of the telekinetic girl Jillian, who feels
for the missing boy and whose telepathic connection holds the key to finding
him. They close in on the place the government is hiding Robin, and the
ending compounds horror after horror as everything goes very wrong.
The film visualizes psychic
phenomena in a terrifying, horrific and gory way aided immeasurably by John
Williams (“JAWS” “STAR WARS”) powerful thundering symphonic score which
sounds like Bernard Herrmann on crack. “THE FURY” is all about its set
pieces..smashingly designed and choreographed sequences of shots and cuts
that pile on the horror and action scene after scene.
The violence in the picture
is pure Grand Guignol. When Robin gets sick of his agency handler Fiona
Lewis, he levitates her in the air by telekinesis and spins her around and
around like a top, making all her blood spray out of her onto the walls and
ceiling like a firehouse.
In another scene, Jillian
is sitting in a room with a female therapist when she gets a psychic flash
from Robin, and sees through his alarmed eyes as he being studied by an army
of scientists in a sea of electronic machinery (the government bad guys are
trying to harness his psychic powers and turn him a weapon, which is making
him psychotic) Jillian, lost in the vision, grabs the therapist’s hand and
her angst makes blood spurt out of the woman’s fingers and eyeballs until
she drops dead on the glass table. Extraordinary coverage and editing and
multiple point of views make this a stand out sequence.
Then there’s a wild scene
in an amusement park, where telekinetic Robin gets mad and mentally unscrews
the bolts of the carousel, causing it to spin madly out of control with the
screaming people trapped on the ride and crash spectacularly.
The best sequence in the
film is a slow motion chase where Amy Irving escapes from the psychic
institute in her nightgown and is pursued by several agents as she runs down
the sidewalk to where Kirk Douglas is waiting in a cab to rescue her. With
just a few props and elements, DePalma shows why he is the master of the set
piece in this extraordinarily choreographed visual symphony of suspended
time and breathless suspense, going from exhilaration to tragedy. You have
to see it.
Be warned about this movie,
a LOT of the audience identification characters get killed and the picture
is very 70’s in its nihilism. It may have hurt the box office that DePalma
took the Hitchcock “PSYCHO” technique of killing the main character to
shatter audience equilibrium to the limit here.
The cast is superb. As
Jillian, lovely Amy Irving projects fetching qualities of innocence, ardent
sensitivity and vulnerability. She creates a gentle natured teen so
terrified and confused by her destructive powers—when angered or alarmed,
her touch can cause people to bleed violently– she won’t let anyone touch
her, including Mom. Irving played the good girl in “CARRIE” but here gets
to BE Carrie.
John Cassavettes is one of
my favorite actors, perfectly cast here as the sinister and ruthlessly
manipulative government agent, Childress. According to rumor, Cassavettes
found the character in the script too much of a pussy and added his own
truthful hard-nosed input to make the character more powerful. In the film,
Childress starts as best friends with Kirk Douglas’ fellow agent, Peter,
until Cassavettes coordinates a Middle Eastern terrorist ambush to steal
Peter’s son Robin for his agency’s nefarious purposes. There is an
excellent mano a mano between the two actors throughout the film, as Douglas
machine guns Cassavettes’ arm and relentlessly eludes a team of Childress’
black ops agent suits trying to find his son.
Douglas is in good,
vigorous craggy form as the tough and resourceful secret agent and caring
father, but Cassavettes steals the movie out from under him by being such a
bad ass. Wearing a black suit with a sling over his murdered arm and a Dr.
Strangelove black glove, Childress speeds through the streets in his limo or
hovers malignantly conspiring in the shadows. (If you want to catch another
great Cassavettes performance, watch his turn in “TWO MINUTE WARNING” as a
cold ass Swat Team leader who blows star Charlton Heston off the screen in
every scene.)
But boy, does Cassavettes’
character get what’s coming to him. Many people remember ‘THE FURY” for its
famous finale where Amy Irving serves motherfucker Childress his just
desserts in one of the great movie death scenes of all time that will leave
you applauding the screen (and Rick Baker’s fabulous Special Makeup
Effects). Suffice to say ‘THE FURY” has one of the great 70’s last second
final frame cut to black endings ever, up there with “DIRTY MARY CRAZY
LARRY” and “THE MECHANIC.” I love those abrupt endings and made sure to do
one at the climax of “COHEN AND TATE” where Cohen blows his brains out we
smash cut straight to black and roll credits. Boom.
I planned to cast John
Cassavettes as the seasoned hit man Cohen in my first film as director,
“COHEN AND TATE” and got the studio to make him offer. He turned the part
down because he was seriously ill and passed shortly thereafter but called
me personally to explain and thank me. “You’ll get someone to play the hell
out of it,” he said. I did, Roy Scheider. I always wanted to work with
Cassavettes but at least had the honor to talk to him once.
Next month, gang.
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