The Fury (1978)

Featured Audience Ratings

• AJ V

  
  I didn't get to see the whole movie, but it seemed okay from what I saw. The story is good and pretty interesting, I really want to see the rest of this movie.

• Nicki M

  
  So bad it was entertaining. Plot was nearly impossible to follow, topped off with some really bad acting and script. If it was a recent film, would have turned it off in disgust, but the 70's setting gave it a kitschy quality it perhaps didn't really deserve. By the over the… More
  So bad it was entertaining. Plot was nearly impossible to follow, topped off with some really bad acting and script. If it was a recent film, would have turned it off in disgust, but the 70's setting gave it a kitschy quality it perhaps didn't really deserve. By the over the top ending nearly fell off my chair laughing.

• Ken S

  
  This very watchable film from Brian DePalma is worth seeing just to see John Cassavetes explode. The meta symbolism is breathtaking.

• Conner R

  
  It wasn’t the best idea to follow up Carrie with another film about psychics, but this certainly isn’t bad. The parallel storylines of Kirk Douglas and Amy Irving were very interesting and almost completely different in style. On the one hand it feels like a spy thriller and on… More
  It wasn’t the best idea to follow up Carrie with another film about psychics, but this certainly isn’t bad. The parallel storylines of Kirk Douglas and Amy Irving were very interesting and almost completely different in style. On the one hand it feels like a spy thriller and on the other it feels like a science fiction movie. Both tie together in a great way towards the end for a showdown with the diabolical John Cassavetes. The only real thing that brings it down is the weak character development of Kirk Douglas’ son who absolutely serves no purpose in the story and would have been better off dead from the get go. Technically speaking though, this is Brian DePalma at the top of his game. There’s a great slow motion scene that is reminiscent in style to Dario Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet with a nice twist. I also love the use of space and the way it doesn’t feel like an effects driven story. Extremely beautiful aesthetically.

• Tim S

  
  This one was really really good. Much better than some of his other stuff at the time.

• Robert C

  
  Another "blast from my past" that would have beem better left to my original memory. I remember being really impressed (and frieghtened) by this when (as a teenager) we rented it from the video store. This time around it seemed painfully slow and at times horribly… More
  Another "blast from my past" that would have beem better left to my original memory. I remember being really impressed (and frieghtened) by this when (as a teenager) we rented it from the video store. This time around it seemed painfully slow and at times horribly predictable. The "cool telekinetic power" scenes that I remembered so well are few and far between, but still fun (in a chessy 70's sort of way).

• Mark H

  
  Brian De Palma's follow-up to <I>Carrie</I> is another supernatural thriller about teens with psychic abilities. Former government agent Peter Sandza searches for his missing son, kinapped by a close associate in order to harness his paranormal abilities for evil.… More
  Brian De Palma's follow-up to <I>Carrie</I> is another supernatural thriller about teens with psychic abilities. Former government agent Peter Sandza searches for his missing son, kinapped by a close associate in order to harness his paranormal abilities for evil. Along the way, Peter meets a psychic girl who aides him in his quest. Kirk Douglas's overwrought performance and seeing Carrie Snodgress, 30 years younger, play his girlfriend, are just a couple of the unintentionally hilarious bits that make this movie so entertaining. Darryl Hannah's film debut.

• First L

  
  The Fury is an entertaining, yet disjointed thriller that seems to be a combination of David Cronenberg's "Scanners", and a 007 Bond film. The 007 character is played by Douglas, an agent for a super-secret government agency. While living in the middle east, he's… More
  The Fury is an entertaining, yet disjointed thriller that seems to be a combination of David Cronenberg's "Scanners", and a 007 Bond film. The 007 character is played by Douglas, an agent for a super-secret government agency. While living in the middle east, he's attacked by agents posing as terrorists, and left for dead. But it's his son and his son's psychic ability they're after as this agency uses psychics in their cold war battle with the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, a 17-year old girl is also discovered who has psychic powers (when she uses them, everyone around her starts to bleed profusely), and it's up to Douglas to free her while at the same time using her to find his son. Some bad editing in the first hour jumbles key plot elements, in that there seem to be holes in the story that sometimes make it unclear what is happening. I assume the film was edited down due to time constraints, but there were other, more extraneous scenes that could've been removed without affecting the story (I especially enjoyed the ten-minute "Ice cream eating" scene). Also of note is the score by the famous John Williams and it's heavy reliance on the theremin, an instrument most famous for cheesy grade B thrillers from the 40s and 50s. I can't say whether the score was good or bad, but usually when it's that conspicious and distracting from the movie, it's not a very good score.

• Stephen M

  
  One of De Palma's most fascinating films, this parapsychological thriller is surely the most downbeat mainstream film of the Seventies. Not a critical favourite, I actually like this one a lot. The first couple of times you watch it it just feels like a series of striking… More
  One of De Palma's most fascinating films, this parapsychological thriller is surely the most downbeat mainstream film of the Seventies. Not a critical favourite, I actually like this one a lot. The first couple of times you watch it it just feels like a series of striking set-pieces poorly strung together, but with further viewings De Palma's virtuosity and inventive use of storytelling techniques (like CCTV, unusual back-projection, subjective camera and slow-motion) assert themselves. I can't deny that the plotting does go astray later on. Though it represents a bold deviation from audience expectation, the outcome of Kirk Douglas' final reunion with his kidnapped son cannot fail to disappoint; as with Scatman Crothers' return to the Overlook Hotel in "The Shining", you wonder why he (and you) bothered. However, John Cassavetes comeuppance at the end is worth hanging on for. John Williams contributes an excellent Bernard Herrmann-esque score.

• Lafe F

  
  A battle of telekinetic powers combined with terrorism. Great theme music. Imy Irving is great in this film. There's a bloody showdown at the end. The rest is somewhat forgettable. I was too young to understand the exact plot of this film, and not interested enough to re-visit it… More
  A battle of telekinetic powers combined with terrorism. Great theme music. Imy Irving is great in this film. There's a bloody showdown at the end. The rest is somewhat forgettable. I was too young to understand the exact plot of this film, and not interested enough to re-visit it when I was older.

• Danny R

  
  An enjoyable well-made thriller from the late 70s by Brian DePalma, It begins in the mid-east where Kirk Douglas in fine shape as an ex-operative named Peter Sandza, who worked for a super-secret unnamed agency for the U.S. government, Douglas delivers a solid star performance in the… More
  An enjoyable well-made thriller from the late 70s by Brian DePalma, It begins in the mid-east where Kirk Douglas in fine shape as an ex-operative named Peter Sandza, who worked for a super-secret unnamed agency for the U.S. government, Douglas delivers a solid star performance in the role, Peter is on vacation with his beloved son Robin who possesses a powerful psychic gift, he is well-played by young Andrew Stevens, also with them is a old friend and associate named Childress, superbly played by the late John Cassavetes, Peter informs Robin that he is being sent by the agency to a special institute for people who like him have a psychic ability, suddenly from the bench boats appear with masked men firing machine guns, killing many of people at the beach resort, during the shootout Robin gets separated from his father, Childress holds Robin back as the terrorist began to fire at Peter, he shouts out to Childress to get Robin away from the beach, Peter tries to get away on a motorboat which blown up by the terrorists, but survives and sees that Childress staged the attack so he could kidnap Robin, he picks up a machine gun and shoots him hitting him several times in the arm, but Childress gets away with Robin, he wants Peter's son so can try to harness his psychic powers as a weapon of mass destruction. Peter is determined to get his son back so he goes underground and disappears.

• Marcus W

  
  Tries to follow on from the success of Carrie but fails. Douglas is solid and there's some occasional glimpses of just how good De Palma can be, but otherwise this is achingly average.

• Robert F

  
  Mediocre. The entire movie should have focused on the psychic teenagers rather than deviating between that and Peter's spy-thriller story line. Furthermore, the psychic abilities of Gillian and Robin weren't developed or explained at all. Why did they have them and what did… More
  Mediocre. The entire movie should have focused on the psychic teenagers rather than deviating between that and Peter's spy-thriller story line. Furthermore, the psychic abilities of Gillian and Robin weren't developed or explained at all. Why did they have them and what did it mean? Off the top of my head, there was one good scene that played out entirely in slow-motion when Gillian escaped from the clinic (I felt bad for Hester - she was the only character I really liked). But that hardly saves the movie from almost total confusion and tedium.

• Barry L

  
  Brilliant film and great to see such big actors dumbing down to a horror.

Read all 14 featured audience ratings