From a series of complicated and strange movies. The Travis family has their own business. Father Walter (Jason Robards) travels with his medium daughter Martha (Roseanne Arquette) to North America, where they give sessions of spiritualism so that the chosen ones can communicate with the dead. Visitors are all high, but the companions have a rather strained relationship. The father believes much more in the magical properties of bourbon than in the talents of his daughter, but at the same time steadily milks her, exposing her to the public. Like her mother milked before. However, one day there is a sad confirmation of the words of Martha, when she inadvertently begins to predict the death of their loved ones. The first such case is associated with a contract murder, so that the girl quickly falls into the field of view as a prostitute-reporter Harry, and a hitman, who prefers to remain incognito.
Despite the gothic and elegant presentation along the path of classical mysticism, the outer shell of the thriller of the British Mike Hodges seems quite old, as if they shot a movie ten years earlier than stated. Naymysh tries to remove the (supposedly) witness of the crime, a caring boy tries to protect her, and the client herself suffers from psychological stress. On the other hand, Hodges is not limited only to the everyday side of the matter, paying much attention to the joyless picture of the relationship between fathers and children set on the rails of a business similar to prostitution, and also drives on the issues of human existence, which leads as a result a decent on the scale of the Mindfac “shadow on the weave”.
It is difficult to piece together the likeness of a floodlight of multiple rays of thought through boarded-up windows, but it seems that Martha, and with her the author, is concerned about human spiritual emptiness. Except that many people hide behind faith, but only here is the belief that atheists, that the devout one – in what is profitable. As long as the visitors of the session are concerned with nostalgic “meetings” with the long-dead – all is well, but as soon as they begin to knock on your doors, people immediately drive into denial and accusations of black magic. It is not known exactly what Martha feels at the beginning of the film, but in the end she clearly becomes a herald of the forerunner of the Apocalypse, no longer noticing the faces of people behind calculating corpses that do not go out of their comfort zone, which at first is ironically hinted at by the funny statement of Walter’s father: “But he did not die.” You heard a woman, her husband sitting at home watching TV. For some people, that means he's still alive! Here is a rather strange and even comical ending, perhaps leading to a certain disappointment in people, whether it is the phrase “He didn’t even realize if it was a dream” or the rapidly growing black greens that engulf the country.
6 out of 10