This is a gripping thriller. The plot in specific fascinates me. We have a story-line in the present, and a parallel story-line in the past running through flashbacks, all while the mystery of "Who is the killer ?" is on, let alone a big climax where there are desperate attempts to stop a catastrophe in the nick of time. This gets my "WAW" rank easily and worthily.Michael J. Lewis music was too ominous, and too beautiful for that matter. Some of the dialogs were superb. And Richard Burton is one of the reasons why this movie will be immortal. Mainly, it's a thriller with substance. So when Burton is chosen, it's not just a known name on the poster to attract the audience, it's also a great actor to master the intended depth and seriousness best. And he did it perfectly. Speaking of that substance, our lead character, Morlar, is a man who has psychokinetic abilities which can kill anybody he hates. And when he doesn't find any help to defeat his abilities—his hate, as well as those abilities, inflame to madness. But on a deeper level, he's not a man, inasmuch as the man, namely the human being as a son of the modern civilization, who possess super abilities, and – in the same time – is possessed by a devilish desire to destroy. Hence, it's not "man is a speaking animal" or "intellectual animal" anymore, he became "the man with the power to create catastrophe" ! Then, he thinks that he's a messenger of God, who must use his abilities to punish the whole establishment, and bring justice to the world. And it happens to be that his so-called justice equals insanity and mass destruction that finish Boeing 747, office tower, cinema, and cathedral. And in the end, he goes to explode a nuclear power station, to be – symbolically – the modern civilization's man who will end it; due to lack of love, abundance of delusion, or suffering megalomania anyway.Director Jack Gold used metaphors, concerning the modern civilization's human, and his sins in older time, through his previous movie Man Friday (1975). But the thing about the metaphor in The Medusa Touch is that it loaded Morlar heavily to be many things; from a deranged superman, to the Great Powers (Noticing that the nuclear doomsday was a recurring nightmare during the cold war era).The true foibles in the script aren't grave though : In the start of the plane crash scene, the dialog repeated all what was said before, concerning Morlar's evil urges. The story-line of the high executives, who were interested in Morlar's case, almost pushed the movie to be a supernatural / political thriller, a la Brian De Palma's The Fury released in the same year. However, that line was forgotten along the way, and seemed eventually pointless. The matter of the lead meeting a mysterious "Mr. L" is supposed to indicate that he has "Lucifer" as a friend or mentor. Nevertheless, the movie doesn't clear it up, or give it that importance. It's just a shot during a scene, too short and light for its own good.Despite how Lino Ventura performed magnificently, the matter of a French detective assigned to investigate in London was weird (later I knew that there was French money in the production). However using his colleague as a possible suspect, who leaves unnecessarily scary messages for Ventura, or drives so fast towards him—was weirder. It was an excuse to make up some jolts, which enhanced the movie's "horror" side yet a little cheaply. Aside from the writing, Lee Remick portrayed emotionally cold character, coldly. Burton was 53 year old which made him older than the character in some flashbacks. The courtroom scene had bad lighting; it made Burton look 100 year old already. The plane crash was poorly done. But anyhow, we're in 1978, and the movie isn't a blockbuster, plus I believe most of the budget went to the cathedral's climactic sequence, which – on the contrary – was fairly impressive. A TV-ish spirit tarnished the director's work, especially when the movie cuts to another camera, then returns to the first camera, to find that it's still in the same angle, maintaining its same cadre as well. This is a stagnant, if not lazy, TV more than cinema (Jack Gold was originally a TV director).Among many good scenes, 2 stand alone. The first is the vocal flashback, in which the lead talks about his urges while the doctor, and the detective, remember separately at one moment; which's cinematic poetry for me. The second is when the lead visits a fortuneteller. It was vogue and laconic. But in the end, it's clearly understood that the fortuneteller didn't see the lead's end, he rather saw the humanity's end. It harmonizes with how the lead's baby was born deformed, and then got killed by his father. Both ways, there is no future. While it foretells the unfortunate fate, it had one for itself. Roger Ebert ranked it as the worst movie of 1978. Peter Nicholls in his book (Fantastic Cinema) called it a melodrama with overacting. And while giving it a good review, Pierre Greenfield said that it doesn't quite reach the heights it aims at. For me, despite its downsides, it's a splendid entertaining thriller, which has pessimistic substance. Originally, a thriller with substance is very scarce kind to come by. Moreover, you have to admit its uniqueness as a supernatural thriller in 1978, before a flood of similar movies and TV shows in later years. I even think that it affected some of them, like The X Files TV show, especially in terms of having a mix of detective story, sci-fi, and something serious to say.Finally, Mr. Ebert, we all know that The Swarm was the worst movie of 1978. So, weren't you too harsh with The Medusa Touch ?!

"The Medusa Touch" has many effective scenes but the films rather modest budget works against the production. In addition, the narrative is a bit silly in including all those flashbacks but some of them work. It is quite disturbing in thinking about how one seemingly ordinary human being can create all kinds of disasters through sheer will power. That is the character Richard Burton plays and his performance is very good. It is a bit difficult to ascertain whether he is almost a villain in "The Medusa Touch" as he has complete control over his unique but dangerous abilities. In the end, he comes across as being a tragic character who didn't ask to be cursed by his gifts (how else can you describe them?). The flashbacks that reveal his troubled childhood show all this. Jeremy Brett is wasted in his one scene appearance as the man who is having an affair with Burton's wife in the film. I would have thought an actor of his calibre could have had a more interesting character to play. As it is, Brett hams it up unforgivably and doesn't come off well. In comparison, Richard Burton is much more natural and subtle. Derek Jacobi fairs slightly better. Lee Remick has a good part to play as the character who befriends Burton in the film. The film required better special effects than the ones which were used for the films climax but they are just about passable. One of the more interesting films from the latter half of Richard Burton's career.

Richard Burton plays a man who can make terrible things happen by willing it so in his mind. The opening scene shows him being battered nearly to death in his apartment; the rest of the movie he's lying in a coma. His brain activity is still very much alive. Will detective Lino Ventura and psychiatrist Lee Remick be able to stop him before he strikes again? That premise sounds like a potentially good thriller, but the vast majority of the movie is spent trying to convince the leads that Richard Burton really is responsible for the disasters he's claiming credit for. But, told through flashbacks, the audience believes him immediately, so most of the time it's boring waiting for the other people in the movie to catch on. It would have been more exciting if the audience doubted his powers as well.Still, Lee Remick is beautiful, and she's given lots of wide-eyed close-ups in this movie, so if you just want the eye candy, you can probably get through it.

On investigating the attempted murder of a controversial author, a detective contemplates the possibility of supernatural forces at work.Over earnest psychic thriller that really pulls out all the stops, with some big stars and a great big climax. The story is Stephen King style preposterous but without that story teller's ability to touch on the little details in the lives of ordinary people and spring vault them into a cosmic drama.Yes, I can put up with those daft video archives of telekinesis in Soviet labs, but the story develops in such linear fashion with so little imagination that it's hard to keep watching. The photography has no playfulness and simply doesn't engage with the weirdness of the subject matter, sticking instead to square frames and bright lighting. The dialogue is awful, and it really doesn't matter how the actors perform because the characters are drawn like stick men. There's a suicide of one major character late in the story that simply hasn't been foreshadowed - the writer didn't even bother, just stuck it in to create an impression. Awful.Overall: somebody wasted a lot of money on this. Grrr.