Dead on Sight (1994) Poster

(1994)

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4/10
watching a Clock Killer: not a bad way to kill time, but not terribly engrossing either
FieCrier22 June 2005
A woman who had witnessed her younger sister being abducted as a child begins to have visions of murders committed by "The Clock Killer." One is of one of his past murders, while she has another of a future one. The police believed they had already shot and killed the Clock Killer. They might have gotten the wrong man, or there may have been a copycat.

The woman, played rather uninterestingly by Jennifer Beals, is also a student and/or girlfriend of the widowed husband of one of victims, and he teaches a class on serial killers. He's played by Daniel Baldwin, whose main job here is to be suspicious. In one scene he plays a rather unconvincing drunk. William H. Macy, whose talent is really wasted here, plays another man whose job is to be suspicious. Thus, until the killer is identified, we really can't decide which of them is the killer (or copycat), or if it is someone else entirely.

It seems like there are some attempts to push this into the horror genre, like the knife- wielding killer who wears coveralls and a hood with holes cut out for eyes, and a jeweled cross necklace. The psychic visions of the murders are somewhat stylized. But really, it remains in the mystery/thriller arena.

There are also loads of clichés, and some bad direction. Kurtwood Smith, playing a friend and colleague of Baldwin gets pushed down, falling against a wall but not quite making contact with it, and this knocks him out - they should have reshot that until it looked convincing. He also comes to just as a policeman is approaching him to wake him up - corny.

While the ending seems to end on a decisive note "The Clock Killer is dead," since the possibility of a copycat had been raised for at least one of the murders, it seemed more ambiguous to me.
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7/10
Thriller with a twist but a bit plain
miss_niss17 September 2003
This movie has all the elements of a thriller, the innocent girl having visions of murder, the professor, and the shady characters. All the parts don't fit together however, and i found the sex scenes graphic and quite unnecessary.

It does leave you guessing however, as to who the killer is. I was surprised i didn't see the twist coming, but i agree with another users comments of the climax, Jenifer Beal was slightly disappointing. I laughed out loud when she tripped purely because of the cliche.

I enjoy films where the female lead is stronger, Beal's character was too dependent on Baldwin's character for me. At least she could shoot a gun. Thats why i enjoyed 'Enough' with J Lo, if only because for once the woman was smart and quick thinking.

i saw this yesterday as the midday movie so in this context it was pretty good. Today's midday movie is also about a murder and a psychic who dreamed it. again. pity, its quite good, called 'Sworn to Vengence'.
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Good thriller will lots of possibilities
TC-431 March 2001
My wife and I like thrillers like this where you don't know until the end who the killer is and one that has many potential killers. Daniel Baldwin, Jennifer Beals, Bill Macey and Kurtwood Smith were all excellent but the person who stole the movie for me was the sheriff played by that weasel Kent Williams, who was such a pain in the neck for Mike Hammer. Williams has that ability to very exasperating all the time. This was a good Sat. afternoon movie with a large box of popcorn.
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