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Movie Review – The Medusa Touch

I have a story to share! On a Tuesday night in 1988, I caught glimpses of The Medusa Touch on one of the free television channels. What I saw was intense and intriguing, but unfortunately my folks wanted to watch a variety show on another channel, and so I never found out what the movie was about or even what it was called. No thanks to this, creepy images of a man swaddled in bandages, with “a gift for disaster,” stuck in my head for years. I admit to having a few nightmares about it. This lasted till the age of Youtube before I finally learned the name of this 70s horror flick.

After which I watched the entire movie, of course. You know what? It was as equally unnerving, horrific and unforgettable as it was on that Tuesday night in 1988.

Yes, I’m going all fan-boy here. I also acknowledge that the movie has its flaws. Sir Richard Burton, neck deep in alcoholism, tends to overact, and Lee Remick feels as if she badly needs a double-shot herself. Despite these, the movie still works because it is so effortlessly enthralling. You can’t help but be fascinated by Burton’s protagonist, even in his misanthrope, angst-ridden self. The story behind the “monster” also injects an element of uncomfortable sympathy into this fascination, and questions whether nature or nurture is responsible for sociopaths. For those able to view this as only a movie, the similarity of the protagonist’s “disasters” to certain world-changing events would heighten the degree of realism in the storytelling. Here is a grim tale about what happens when a man’s disgust for his fellow beings reaches boiling point. The tragedies he wills into reality has no limits. The horrific truth is that there is a bit of John Morlar in many of us.

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