The Medusa Touch

1978 "Richard Burton is the man with the medusa touch... he has the power to create catastrophe."
6.9| 1h49m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 14 April 1978 Released
Producted By: ITC Entertainment
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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A French detective in London reconstructs the life of a man lying in hospital with severe injuries with the help of journals and a psychiatrist. He realises that the man had powerful telekinetic abilities.

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Director

Jack Gold

Production Companies

ITC Entertainment

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The Medusa Touch Audience Reviews

SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...
Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews
Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
Verity Robins Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
MartinHafer When "The Medusa Touch" debuted, Roger Ebert apparently hated it so much that he named it the worst picture of the year. I am not 100% why he thought this...it's not really good but it's not that bad either.The film begins with Morlar (Richard Burton) getting bludgeoned. Despite the ferocity of the attack and the number of blows he took to the head, the police are shocked to see that they aren't investigating a murder but an attempted murder...though how he survived is anyone's guess. The trail takes them to the man's psychotherapist (Lee Remick) and she recounts a strange story about Morlar thinking he had the ability to use his mind to cause the deaths of folks he didn't like. And, since he was a detestable misanthrope, he didn't seem to like much of anyone! The man investigating the case (Lino Ventura) eventually comes to the determination that perhaps the man in the coma is actually a super- being...someone who does possess strange supernatural powers.This is a decent enough film but the premise itself seems better than the actual movie. I think, for me, the ending wasn't particularly thrilling. Plus, although I love Lino Ventura (he was amazing in many of Jean-Pierre Melville's films), here he seems odd...a French- Italian British police inspector. Worth seeing...perhaps.
begob On investigating the attempted murder of a controversial author, a detective contemplates the possibility of supernatural forces at work.Over earnest psychic thriller that really pulls out all the stops, with some big stars and a great big climax. The story is Stephen King style preposterous but without that story teller's ability to touch on the little details in the lives of ordinary people and spring vault them into a cosmic drama.Yes, I can put up with those daft video archives of telekinesis in Soviet labs, but the story develops in such linear fashion with so little imagination that it's hard to keep watching. The photography has no playfulness and simply doesn't engage with the weirdness of the subject matter, sticking instead to square frames and bright lighting. The dialogue is awful, and it really doesn't matter how the actors perform because the characters are drawn like stick men. There's a suicide of one major character late in the story that simply hasn't been foreshadowed - the writer didn't even bother, just stuck it in to create an impression. Awful.Overall: somebody wasted a lot of money on this. Grrr.
Armand the nuances of story. the nuances of acting. the intensity of Richard Burton look. and an old theme. each as convincing ingredient for a real good movie interesting for atmosphere, original for the tension and large shadows. far to be original, it represents a good job. and that fact defines it. the presence of a remarkable cast - Lee Remick, Richard Burton and Lino Ventura, the short presence of Michael Hordern and Derek Jacobi, the image and the dialog rhythm are perfect bricks for a story about a kind of Raskolnikoff and his new form of justice. sure, it is slice from a large pie of conspiracies and paranormal events but that is only a virtue. because it has a special flavor and the right atmosphere.
sol1218 ***SPOILERS***It's when author and former barrister John Morlar,Richard Burton,is found dead in his apartment with his brains bashed in it's suspected that he was the victim of a home invasion even though nothing was taken from the place. Later before his body even got cold to the astonishment of the police coroner and transplanted French Inspetor Brounel, Lino Ventura, who's on loan to London's Scotland Yard Morlar suddenly comes to life! At the local hospital it's discovered that Morlar's brain is working at a double or triple time pace yet his heart beat in barley audible. What's the reason for Morlar's sudden resurrection is that he's got some unfinished business to take care of that will end up wiping out all of London including the royal family top British Government officials and the Church of England which the cynical and atheist Morlar hates with a passion!Inspector Brunel goes to Morlar's psychiatrist whom he found extensively written about in his rambling journals Doctor Zonfeld, Lee Remick, to get the lowdown from her just what this unstable and crazy guy was all about! As well as who may have murdered or tried to murder him! And what he get's from the doctor is a story of death and destruction that goes back to when he was a pre teenager that Morlar feels that he with his supernatural and demonic powers was responsible for! At first believing that Morlar's claims of his power to will death and destruction on the world as well as individuals that he hates to be the ravings of a deranged lunatic Inspector Brunel can't put out of his mind, like Dr. Zonfeld couldn't, why is he still alive and why his brainwaves are somehow effecting events in the world around him.We get to see Morlar in action in a number of chilling flashbacks where he willed, with his snake-like eyes, death on anyone whom he felt messed with him or just gave him a hard time. It's later in his life when his ungrateful old lady and two timing wife Pat, Marle-Christine Barraut, told Morlar that she was leaving him for her lover bit actor Jeremy Brett, Edward Parris, which he was more then happy to see her go. But when Pat brought up what complete dud he was in bed and how Morlar fathered their stillborn child that he then really let his powers of death and destructions kick in. It's within an hour after Pat left him for good that Morlar got the "good news" from a police spokesman that she and her lover Edward were killed in a car accident! As happy as Morler was in hearing about the sudden demise of his ungrateful wife and her playboy lover he also now came to realize that his powers were real and with him slowly going insane he won't be able to control them anymore in the future! Thus leading to the deaths in disasters that he wills, with his uncontrollable brainwaves, countless thousands of human beings!***SPOILERS*** It soon becomes apparent that it was non other then Dr.Zonfeld herself who smashed Morlar skull in and for good reason. He had earlier demonstrated his destructive telekinesis power by causing a disastrous 9/11, 23 years before the real 9/11 terrorist attack happened, like plane crash into a high rise office building in downtown London that ended up killing over 700 people. Now with him, or his brain, still alive and kicking Morlar is ready to cause far greater damage and destruction that's unless the life support system keeping him and his brain alive is shut off immediately!Very disturbing film with no happy ending with a both witty and sarcastic Richard Burton outstanding as the green eyed monster and "Master of Disaster" John Morlan. A man whom the world and society ignored in not treating him for his sever mental and emotional problems and is now damned, in what's to become a major nuclear power plant melt-down, to suffer for it.