The Fury (1978)

A former CIA agent uses the talents of a young psychic to help retrieve his telekinetic son from terrorists, who want to use his mental powers for evil.

Director:

Brian De Palma (as Brian DePalma)

Writers:

John Farris (screenplay), John Farris (novel)

Stars:

Kirk Douglas, John Cassavetes, Carrie Snodgress

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Kirk Douglas	...	Peter
John Cassavetes	...	Childress
Carrie Snodgress	...	Hester
Charles Durning	...	Dr. Jim McKeever
Amy Irving	...	Gillian
Fiona Lewis	...	Susan Charles
Andrew Stevens	...	Robin
Carol Eve Rossen	...	Dr. Ellen Lindstrom (as Carol Rossen)
Rutanya Alda	...	Kristen
Joyce Easton	...	Mrs. Bellaver
William Finley	...	Raymond
Jane Lambert	...	Vivian Nuckells
Sam Laws	...	Blackfish
J. Patrick McNamara	...	Robertson
Alice Nunn	...	Mrs. Callahan

Storyline

A secret US agency behind the unscrupulous Childress gathers children with parapsychologic abilities and trains them to become killers in war situations. To rescue his son, who was officially declared dead after an arranged accident, the ex-CIA agent Peter investigates against Childress.

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Plot Keywords:

mind reading | opening action scene | secret government organization | glowing eyes | loss of son | 

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Taglines:

An experience in terror and suspense.

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

R

Did You Know?

Trivia

It's fitting that Amy Irving play the telekinetic teen in this movie since she played Sue Snell in Depalma's 1976 hit Carrie; and if you read the original book Sue Snell is able to pick up Carrie's telekinesis at he end of the story and communicate with her via ESP as Carrie is dying. (This scene was left out of the movie). So it makes sense that the telekinetic novice Sue would be resurrected as the telekinetic titan Gillian in the follow up to Carrie.

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Goofs

Early in film, in tracking shot of Robin and Peter at the beach cafe, a young man steps from the water nude and is seen between the father and son. As the young man emerges back into view from behind Peter, he can be seen covering his groin with his hands.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Robin Sandza: [laughing]
Peter Sandza: I won.
Robin Sandza: What do you mean, you won? You did not!

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Alternate Versions

The film was cut in Argentina and Sweden.

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Connections

Featured in The Rotten Tomatoes Show: Alice in Wonderland/Stolen/Brooklyn's Finest (2010)

User Reviews

Gray Matter

****SPOILERS**** Brian de Palma has made a career of imitating the works of directors like the late Alfred Hitchcock and the present Italian director Dario Argento. In his movies Brian sometimes hits and his films are quite good with his own unique type of stylish surrealism that enhances the Hitchcock and Argento-type like scenes. Sometimes Brian misses and his movies turn out to be both mind-bending and confusing messes. "The Fury" is one of Brian de Palma's misses.

Brian de Palma's attempt to strike gold for the second time with a "Carrie" like film about telekinesis in his movie "The Fury". Instead "The Fury" bit off far too much then it can chew and in the end it ended up chocking itself to death.

"The Fury" has two, not one like in "Carrie", young persons with telekinesis powers in two different places. When they finally got together at the end of the film all hell broke loose with people flying out of windows and spinning like tops on the ceiling until all their limbs flung off their body. This was very good visual effects for the time being but the very bad plot development in getting a hold of what the movie was trying to say.

Peter Sandza, Kirk Douglas, spends the entire movie looking for his son Robin, Andrew Stevens, after he was kidnapped in Israel by Peter's friend Ben Childress, John Cassavetes, and co-worker in some secret US government agency where they both worked for twenty years. Ben staging a fake terrorist attack in order to kidnap Robin and at the same time kill Peter. Peter survived and wounded Ben with a blast from a assault rifle, that he took off a dead attacker on the beach, that cost Ben his left arm. The reason for kidnapping Robin is that he possesses a strange and powerful telekinesis talent that the agency that Ben still works for wanted to use against the enemies of the USA.

After a number of wild goose chases in Chicago and with the help of Gillian Bellaver, Amy Irving, who has the same telekinesis powers that Robin has both Peter & Amy track down Robin to some safe-house outside the city. he place is run by the agency that Ben works for. Robin sensing that Gillian, his psychic twin, is nearby and goes wild and insane feeling that he'll be killed by Ben & Co. and then be replaced by her in their telekinesis experiments.

Robin ends up killing his handler and lover Susan, Flona lewis, by spinning her to death. Ropin also has a number of the staff who tried to restrain him lifted up off the floor and thrown out the window to their deaths. With his poor and confused father, Peter, flung out the window together with him only to have Peter grab Robin's arm and hold on to a ledge. Robin then fights his father off and falls to his death. With a despondent Peter, after seeing this, throws himself to his death landing besides Robin.

Later Ben alone with Gillian trying to smooth talk her into going along with him in his plan to use her Telekinesis powers for the US. This line of total BS on Bens part has Gillian go completely insane and use those powers on him and blast him to bits, like he was cooked inside a microwave oven. Gillian end up telling a startled Ben to go to the place where the sun don't shine yet where it hot all the time.

The movie "The Fury" just never took off and seemed to go nowhere with Kirk Douglas as Peter running around Chicago like a lunatic from place to place at one point with nothing on but his underwear. Peter was such bad news to almost everyone who tried to helped him that they ended up being killed.

John Cassavetes was darkly effected as the evil one armed man who was responsible for all the bad things that happened in the movie. In the end he got just what he so rightfully deserved. Both Amy Irving & Andrew Stevens were unstable as well as psychic in their roles as the twin whiz-kids of parapsychology causing involuntary movements in both people and objects.

What really made "The Fury" so bad is that you could not build up any sympathy for no one in the film. From the evil Ben to the desperate Peter to the helplessly unstable and confused Gillian & Robin.. just no one!

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 March 1978 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Fury

Filming Locations:

Water Tower Place Shopping Center, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$5,500,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox, Frank Yablans Presentations

Technical Specs

Runtime:

118 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1