Tuesday, December 5, 2017

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE PREMONITION (1976) **


Ellie Barber is an emotionally unstable carny who wants to kidnap her biological daughter (future member of New Radicals, Danielle Brisbois).  She enlists the help of her mime boyfriend (Richard Lynch) and discovers her daughter is living with a loving foster family.  Sharon (It’s Alive) Farrell is the foster mom who starts having weird visions.  When Barber finally kidnaps the kid, Farrell uses her second sight to find her.

Seeing the always kooky Richard Lynch performing a mime routine over the opening credits is about as creepy as The Premonition gets.  While the early scenes that set-up the premise are sound enough, the constant cutaways to the doctor explaining a lot of psycho babble really slows the momentum down.  These intrusions get on your nerves in a hurry and detract from the family drama at hand.  The freak-out scenes, when they finally do come, just aren’t that freaky.  The monotonous finale which heavily relies on Farrell endlessly playing a piano is lame too.   

All of this sort of plays out like a Lifetime movie with a hint of exploitation elements.  However, it’s all much too tame to really leave much of an impression.  Director Robert Allen (Rebel) Schnitzer lends a touch of atmosphere to the proceedings, but fails to deliver the goods in any sort of meaningful way.  The scummy performance by Lynch alone makes it watchable, although you may have trouble keeping your eyes open, thanks to the leaden pacing.

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