The horror of Medusa

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Movie
German title The horror of Medusa
Original title The Medusa Touch
Country of production Great Britain , France
original language English
Publishing year 1978
length 105 minutes
Age rating FSK 12 (previously 16)
Rod
Director Jack Gold
script John Briley based
on the novel by
Peter Van Greenaway
production Anne V. Coates , Jack Gold
music Michael J. Lewis
camera Arthur Ibbetson
cut Anne V. Coates , Ian Crafford
occupation

The Medusa (Original title: The Medusa Touch ) is a mystery - thriller from director Jack Gold from the year 1978 . It is based on the 1973 novel of the same name by Peter Van Greenaway . In Germany, the film was premiered on November 8, 1980 on the ARD television program under the title Die Schreck der Medusa with a participation rate of 28%. In the following year there was also a cinema use in Germany under the title Medusa Touch - The Horrors of Medusa , only for the video evaluation the title was then changed to The Horror of Medusa .

action

London in the 1970s: The embittered and cynical author John Morlar has fallen victim to an assassination attempt and is now only artificially kept alive in the intensive care unit of a city hospital, although according to the attending physician, Dr. Johnson, is actually no longer viable because of his severe head injuries.

Commissioner Brunel - a French exchange police officer - is assigned to the case. At the scene of the crime, there are few indications of the course of the crime. What makes Brunel and his assistants aware, however, are strange notes by Morlar such as “No sign of L” or “The walls of Jericho were torn down in one day - what does the word 'impossibility' mean? ” And the term telekinesis . In addition, a scrapbook with newspaper clippings about all sorts of natural disasters and accidents that have occurred around the world in recent years. Through Morlar's notebook they stumble upon Dr. Zonfeld - Morlar's psychiatrist telling Brunel the story of her patient. Morlar therefore believed that he had a secret power with which he could influence other people's lives. In the apartment of the writer a relief depends similar to the Medusa by Caravaggio , and like the look of the Medusa was turned to stone people to stone, Morlar can, not only with his eyes, the fate of people telepathically influence and in his misanthropy disasters, including those from long distance, trigger. During his research, Brunel discovers that Morlar actually has this gift and that it was Zonfeld who tried to kill him when Morlar was about to use his power to cause a new catastrophe. One of the disasters caused by Morlar is the crash of a jumbo jet that flies into an office tower.

Morlar's still active brain also poses deadly danger from his bedside: When he is about to collapse a large London cathedral full of people , where a ceremony with many high-ranking personalities is currently taking place, Brunel rushes to the hospital and sets the life-support devices out of order at Morlar's bed. In vain, because the measuring instruments of his brain waves continue to show active activity. At the end of the film, Morlar's hand scribbled on a piece of paper the name of the Windscale nuclear power station , his next target.

Reviews

  • “Despite some lengths, an attractively staged criminal case” (rating: 2 stars = average) - Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz in the dictionary “Films on TV” (extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 721
  • Lexicon of international film : "Brilliantly staged mixture of crime, horror and catastrophe film with swipes against the state, church and military."

Awards

The film was nominated for a Saturn Award in 1979 for best horror film .

literature

  • Peter Van Greenaway: The Horror of Medusa. (Original title: The Medusa Touch ). German by Hannelore Lenzner. New edition. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-548-31128-8
  • Jörg Trempler: Medusa Touch - From horror in the age of television , in: Klaus Sachs-Hombach (Ed.), Image and Medium, Cologne 2006, pp. 164–177, ISBN 3-938258-22-5

Web links

Commons : Film locations of The Medusa Touch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Terror of Medusa . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2006 (PDF; test number: 67 310 DVD).
  2. ↑ Irmela Schneider (Ed.): Lexicon of British and American Feature Films Spiess, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-89166-064-2
  3. ↑ The Terror of Medusa. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used