The Fury (1978): Too Many Plots spoil this broth (Review)

Brian De Palma, telekinesis and violence. When most people are addressed with those few facts the film they are going to come out with is Carrie. Unfortunately, lost under the legend of one of his few masterworks is 1978’s the Fury; Brian De Palma’s other telekinetic thriller. Even if the shadow of Carrie will never be escaped, Arrow’s latest release will bring this unknown De Palma movie to a brand new audience.

With its screenplay by John Farris, The Fury tries to be too much in too small a window. Farris’ screenplay is a little complicated as there are two arcs to contend with; to call his screenplay hectic is to zealously throw around understatement and hyperbole. Nonetheless, those arcs focus on Peter Sandza (Kirk Douglas) losing his extremely talented son in an ambush just before his son, Robin, is going to be put in a normal environment. Behind this ambush is a mysterious government agency fronted by Childress (John Cassavetes), Peter’s best friend. The second arc has considerable cross-over whilst being a fully-realised story in its own right, and that sees Gillian (Amy Irving) struggling to come to terms with her newly found powers and her psychic connection with Peter’s son, Robin (Andrew Stevens). And that’s not even the whole picture, like I said, too much story for a single film to contain.

Any political intrigue in the Fury is outright hokum. Using a mysterious un-named Government Agency is the 1970s equivalent of terrorists – uncomplicated bad guys that tap into anxieties of an era, avoiding any real need to characterise instead trading in typecasts.  It’s an all too common occurrence to see the antagonist skipped over, this is a tradition as old as genre cinema itself. Even if it throws around bonkers ideas like ‘having his arm killed’, John Cassavetes deserves better and not just because of his reputation, but because he brings a real brooding malevolence to his scenes that deserve more flesh on his characters barebones.

Despite all the stories competing for centre billing, the conflict between Sandza and Childress mark De Palma’s film as a deceptively simple film. Now the tone is an entirely different point; De Palma jumps from intrigue to horror before breaking it all up with some comic relief. That’s not to talk down to any aspect, with the horror being grim and the comedy funny. The hostage situation is pure gold no matter how out-of-place it is. Then there is the horror that drops any lingering pretence of light and goes for a climax of rampant death and unexpectedly bleak character resolutions. Even as a hardened fan of horror it took me off guard.

The elephant in the room is the ESP and psychic trickery, and that allows De Palma to throw violence around with characteristic glee. The more common use of blood and violence comes with Gillian’s touch; any contact and she has a traumatic vision with the person she’s touching bleeding liberally. Some of the more extreme instances are wonderfully over the top. The final moment of the movie is when De Palma lets any restraint go with a full-body explosion. Unfortunately, the way Gillian (Amy Irving) exhibits her powers are undermined by plain old overacting, her ‘power poses’ skip gleefully into the embarrassing.  It’s not all violence, genre legend Richard H. Kline plays with memory and vision through some brilliantly dizzy and inventive cinematography.

Even if each tonal flavour has many triumphs, whether, through the many ideas on display or visual presentation, the inescapable truth remains whereby it’s difficult to pin down what De Palma was actually trying to achieve. Its almost as if he has made three films upon vaguely related themes and haphazardly edited them into one whole – think Lone Wolf and Cub movies becoming Shogun Assassin. There’s an entertainment value to be had from him zigging and zagging from one scene to the next, still, it never quite manages to overcome some of the wild contradictions this storytelling style sets up. The Fury, one for the De Palma completists.

Thanks for reading our late review of The Fury

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