The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena (1976) User Reviews

Interesting details of the psychic world make this enjoyable.

[emm · 6/10 · 10 April 1999]

This documentary feature hosted by Raymond Burr is another in a series of movie mysteries about the strange and the unknown, and it's better than you'd least expect. What follows is a detailed examination of psychology through some uncommon events portrayed here. It'll be interesting for a few lazy school kids who can't turn in science reports on time. As the title says, it's amazing how man explores a vast perception of psychic abilities under a series of demonstrations including telepathy, astral projections, and sayonces. It's fun in an entertaining way, and you even have the opportunity to test yourself of any telepathic senses under the care of a doctor (Does this mean audience participation?). The acting footage that recreates uncommon happenings is fairly amusing, yet peculiar enough to make any normal movie look like a sleazy prime-time TV show. Since this was made by the once-proud Sunn Classics, you can easily sit through this one, but always remember that movies are just plain and simple fantasies that trick reality. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised to find a few ghosts lurking around when I'm asleep!

quite interesting

[Hessian499 · 8/10 · 8 September 2001]

Produced during a resurgence of interest in psychic phenomena in the mid to late 1970s, Amazing World covers quite a few topics, from telepathy and astral projection to ghosts and haunted houses. Raymond Burr is excellent as the host and narrator, and while the recreation actors are not Oscar material they do a fairly good job with the roles given to them. Burr himself is what makes this documentary work; someone with less stature or experience may have made this film seem less serious and more of a tabloid type movie. The scenes recreating the reports of ghosts may or may not frighten the viewer, but are quite well done nonetheless. Definitely well made, and much better than many other documentaries from the same era.

Memorable For Two Scenes

[a_l_i_e_n · 23 April 2006]

Sort of a grab-bag of a movie that takes a look at a whole bunch of different supernatural phenomena. While it's pretty routine stuff, there were two scenes worthy of permanent inclusion in an adolescent's memory:

• a group of folks are shown going out to graveyards at night with audio equipment to try and capture sounds and messages from the dead. One recording in particular (crystal clear, too) is of a male voice whispering the words "I'm scared".

*shiver*

• The other scene is a re-enactment of an allegedly true paranormal experience. Producer Robert Guenette never gives us much background detail or even attempts to theorize what may have been the cause of this strange occurrence. It's just sort of thrown into the movie. Anyways, basically what happens is a woman is home alone with her young son. It's nighttime and they are chatting in the kitchen when they begin to hear what sounds like heavy breathing coming from the basement. These eerie sounds grow increasingly louder and it's clear that whoever (or whatever) may be the source is coming up the stairs. The woman puts an arm around the little boy as the kid whimpers a plaintive "Mommy?" and together they stand there gazing at the basement door.

These unearthly noises are literally echoing through the house, and whatever is making them now sounds as if it's reached the top of the stairs! As the woman, her child, and anyone watching this breathlessly waits for the door to open...SUDDENLY THE LIGHTS GO OUT! The mother grabs the telephone and amid a swirl of tinny synthesized music she frantically dials- um, possibly the police, or maybe her husband? They really don't say. Oddest of all, that's where the scene ends. There's no epilogue about bones found in the basement or exorcisms to cleanse the place. Also, since this was supposed to be based on an actual incident, wouldn't you think that they'd have said something to assure us that the kid and his mother survived? It's a very unsatisfying way to conclude a genuinely hair-raising vignette.

Another pertinent question you could rightly ask is why didn't this lady just pick her kid up and get out of that freakin' haunted house? But, to be fair, I guess everybody has their own way of reacting to the mysterious. For instance, there is someone out there who goes by the name of Evil Dead Girl that I'd bet money would probably have gone right up and opened that basement door.

BS at its finest

[BandSAboutMovies · 8/10 · 12 March 2021]

Man, those guys at Sunn made so many of these and I feel sad, because I'm starting to run out of their films to enjoy. Well, this time, they told Brad Crandall to stay home and brought in the big guns. And by big guns, I mean Raymond Burr. This movie astounded me as a kid because I only knew him from Ironsides, so when he started walking, I was as amazed as the crew of SCTV when Guy Caballero first stood from his wheelchair.

Written and directed by Robert Guenette - who is pretty much the master of these kinds of movies, because he's also the man who made The Mysterious Monsters and The Man Who Saw Tomorrow - this movie is like reading the National Enquirer in the 70's when it was borderline insane and unafraid to scream it on every page. Look, there's Jeanne Dixon! What about Nostradamus? And hey, did you know Sharon Tate's voice showed up after her death? What about ghosts showing up in photos? Or Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mtchell having ESP and contacting people from the moon? Did a psychic detective find the Boston Strangler? What's astral projection all about? Peter Hurkos, who was in all sorts of these movies, is around. And oh hey, it's Uri Gellar*!

There's one definitely unsettling story about a voice in the basement that feels like it could have been a movie all its own and probably was, as it has no evidence - that would not stop Sunn Classics - and feels more like a horror movie than the rest of this.

*There's also a pre-Dallas Linda Gray here too!

Are you tired of only wondering about this?.....

[afeinwein · 19 November 2006]

.....then by all means let me know directly at the above e-mail address so that I may arrange for a copy for you. Far and away the best of the Sunn Classics docudramas, this eerily effective retrospective of thoroughly intriguing, allegedly actual accounts of things that went bump in the night (and day) benefits greatly from the commanding presence of host Raymond Burr. Chilling reenactments of bizarre, unexplained incidents (complete with scary electronic music) supplement fascinating commentary by people somehow linked to whatever phenomena, with actual eerie archival footage of some (sur)real McCoys in action to cement one's interest! Included are spine-tingling predictions of Nostradamus and Jeane Dixon; ghostly manifestations recorded in photographs (extremely creepy stuff); a post-mortem Sharon Tate's voice allegedly captured on tape (ditto); Apollo 14's Edgar Mitchell's ESP expertise and claims of having telepathically contacted the earth from the moon; telekinetic dice rolling; various sixth-sense experiences; Ted Serios, whose thoughts can apparently be photographed; a once-clinically-dead man describing his experience; the psychic investigator/crimebuster who helped capture the Boston Strangler and the Mansons; the practice of astral projection; dramatizations of an unhappy wife's stress producing violent telekinesis and that of an unseen monster in a cellar, etc. etc.