A Delightfully Dark Thriller
Main Cast: Michael Nouri, Kyle MacLachlan, William Boyett, Claudia Christian
Director: Jack Sholder
Plot Summary: A handful of citizens suddenly go on a murderous rampage and a police detective is left to figure out why. A mysterious FBI agent adds to the mystery.
This movie is a delight to the deeply buried dark urges that lurk within us. Most of us have had short daydreams to get back at various indignities that happen during the day: being cut off, long lines, traffic. The evil cuss that is the antagonist of the movie does just that: steals cars, shoots people in the head, and generally does whatever they want to satisfy their urges.
We meet Detective Tom Beck (Nouri), the best in the department, as he takes on a murderous young man who had robbed a bank and tore off in a sports car. The guy is stopped, shot up, and taken to the hospital. He is horribly burnt and soon to die. But this is where the sci-fi part comes in: he leans over another man in the hospital and a worm-like creature crawls out and goes down the other man’s throat. So we have an alien on the loose!
Beck is not to know that, of course. He just tries to keep up with the non-stop action. He receives help from an FBI man (MacLachlan), although he’d rather go alone. I don’t blame him. The FBI guy is strange, unnaturally so…
While the plot moves along briskly, and there is plenty of blood and gore, there is intelligence to the movie, sometimes of a macabre kind. I enjoyed it. And while the cop does have a wife and kid, and there is the obligatory family-life scene, it isn’t forced and does not seem contrived.
Overall I would recommend this one, as a good sci-fi and police thriller movie, intermixed.
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