It's atmospherically done but I don't know what it is that gets done.
Let me think. Theresa Russell is married to a likable doctor, Mark Harmon, but has been having an affair with the moody James Russo. He's also a doctor. Russell knows how to pick them. Harmon knows nothing of the affair.
There is a boating accident and Harmon sustains what is evidently a mortal head wound. Russell is broken up. He was a nice guy. But his body disappears from the hospital. Zip, just like that, after being pronounced DOA.
Russo is delayed in his assignation with Russell in picturesque Carmel, California. She enters the motel room, which she assumes to be empty, and, Lo!, there is a confused and amnesic and paranoid Harmon. Russo finally shows up and things get even more twisted.
Out of nowhere, Russell announces to a bored priest that she's had a vision of the Virgin Mary, tell her something like, "If you build it, they will come." Well -- not that, but it might as well be, since the message is so much nonsense. By this time she's going nuts and the even the most patient viewer will understand why. Will Patton, now an earnest priest, tries to comfort her and explain that God has dominion over life and death but everything else is our choice. A strange nun has recurring dreams of Russell meeting the Virgin Mary. The nun and Russell go to the place of the vision and something portentous happens but nobody knows what. A visiting priest blesses himself and stares in awe at The Spot, but it looks the same to me as it did before.
I swear I'm not making that all up. There's a love triangle and some sort of supernatural dynamics are forced upon it, where it all sits uncomfortably, like a tarantula on a piece of angel food cake. I love Raymond Chandler.
This one is exquisitely photographed. It's difficult to turn Point Lobos into a vision of hell but Roeg manages it. Will Patton, my able supporting player in the magnificent "Everybody Wins", is not a beneficent priest. He's a human sidewinder and nothing else. Boy, is he miscast. One glance at those staring eyes and fake grin and you think "pedophile." Theresa Russell does her best but nobody can conquer a confused script like this. Mark Harmon dies, goes crazy, and comes back to life so often it becomes boring.
I'd love to recommend this because I admire Nicholas Roeg for some of his earlier work, and for his hiring my little son as an extra in one of his flicks. But my artistic integrity forbids me. Try as he might, he is no Edgar G. Ulmer. But he at least passes Cedric the Entertainer.
Let me think. Theresa Russell is married to a likable doctor, Mark Harmon, but has been having an affair with the moody James Russo. He's also a doctor. Russell knows how to pick them. Harmon knows nothing of the affair.
There is a boating accident and Harmon sustains what is evidently a mortal head wound. Russell is broken up. He was a nice guy. But his body disappears from the hospital. Zip, just like that, after being pronounced DOA.
Russo is delayed in his assignation with Russell in picturesque Carmel, California. She enters the motel room, which she assumes to be empty, and, Lo!, there is a confused and amnesic and paranoid Harmon. Russo finally shows up and things get even more twisted.
Out of nowhere, Russell announces to a bored priest that she's had a vision of the Virgin Mary, tell her something like, "If you build it, they will come." Well -- not that, but it might as well be, since the message is so much nonsense. By this time she's going nuts and the even the most patient viewer will understand why. Will Patton, now an earnest priest, tries to comfort her and explain that God has dominion over life and death but everything else is our choice. A strange nun has recurring dreams of Russell meeting the Virgin Mary. The nun and Russell go to the place of the vision and something portentous happens but nobody knows what. A visiting priest blesses himself and stares in awe at The Spot, but it looks the same to me as it did before.
I swear I'm not making that all up. There's a love triangle and some sort of supernatural dynamics are forced upon it, where it all sits uncomfortably, like a tarantula on a piece of angel food cake. I love Raymond Chandler.
This one is exquisitely photographed. It's difficult to turn Point Lobos into a vision of hell but Roeg manages it. Will Patton, my able supporting player in the magnificent "Everybody Wins", is not a beneficent priest. He's a human sidewinder and nothing else. Boy, is he miscast. One glance at those staring eyes and fake grin and you think "pedophile." Theresa Russell does her best but nobody can conquer a confused script like this. Mark Harmon dies, goes crazy, and comes back to life so often it becomes boring.
I'd love to recommend this because I admire Nicholas Roeg for some of his earlier work, and for his hiring my little son as an extra in one of his flicks. But my artistic integrity forbids me. Try as he might, he is no Edgar G. Ulmer. But he at least passes Cedric the Entertainer.