Recurrent dreams of your murder that may signify your reincarnation! Others who've noted the superior cinematography and soundtrack are correct in identifying the elements that glue one to Peter Proud's predicament. I was an usher when this first showed up in'75--we always got 'gasps' from the audience at the preposterous climax! An opening screenshot saying "L.A. 1975" would make the film appear undated and retrospective. Otherwise exciting and a must-see especially for film students and aficionados.

Director J Lee Thompson is a long way from Tiger Bay, The Guns of Navarone and Cape Fear with this cheap looking, lurid, would be thriller that could be described as an ABC Movie of the Week channeling soft core porn. Even the reincarnation theme is redolent of those Movies of the Week as is the flat dialog, lack of atmosphere and perfunctory performances by a bland Jennifer O'Neil, a charmless Michael Sarrazin who looks bad or is badly photographed and Cornelia Sharpe who struggles unsuccessfully to make two consecutive syllables sound persuasive. Unpersuasive too is Margot Kidder's make-up. She plays O'Neil's mother and has a scene masturbating in a bathtub that would be at home in any porn film.

Reincarnation of Peter Proud, as the name suggests, deals with the most mysterious, and in many ways the creepiest, of all paranormal phenomenon: reincarnation. The film follows the story of Peter Proud, a college professor who is plagued by dreams which are not really dreams, but visions of a past life in the 1940's-the most disturbing among these visions being the brutal murder of a man by a woman while he is swimming in a lake. Anxious to rid himself of these visions and also mystified by the possibility of rediscovering his former existence, Proud embarks on a journey into the past and learns that he was Jeff Curtis, a womanizing 'son of a bitch', who married Marcia, the daughter of a bank manager, for her money, and subsequently cheated on her. On further probing, he comes face to face with Marcia, the murderess from his dreams, who has been an alcoholic and psychiatric wreck since the death of her husband. And he also meets Ann Curtis, the daughter of his previous incarnation, with whom he eerily enough, begins a romantic and even a sexual relationship! (which may or may not be considered incestuous in this context) Ultimately, Proud's life comes full circle as he meets the same end as the late lamented Jeff Curtis...The music is pretty well done, serving as both creepy and yet conveying the mildly psychic atmosphere of the film. Michael Sazzarin, Jennifer O'Neill and Margot Kidder do pretty good jobs on Peter Proud, Ann Curtis and Marcia respectively. Toby Stephano quite vividly portrays the abusive alcholic Jeff Curtis in flashbacks, which serves to contrast the character with the much milder and sober Peter Proud. Even the minor characters play their parts effectively in the film and fit cohesively into the plot in their small ways, from Peter's girlfriend who is sceptical about his reincarnation, to the para-psychologist who initially aids him in rediscovering his past life, to the club owner who gives him an insight into the behavior of the late Jeff Curtis.If there is any flaw in this movie, its that its a bit too short, especially towards the end, where we could have benefited from more scenes between Peter and Marcia. And maybe another scene after Peter's death wrapping up the story completely (giving a proper 'ending' to the principal characters). That apart, this movie, while far from being called a classic, is certainly a modest ornament in itself.

Reincarnation is undoubtedly an interesting topic and I'm fairly sure that this is the only film that I've seen which handles the topic in a 'mystery thriller' kind of way, but the fact that the topic is interesting really only serves in making this film more disappointing as The Reincarnation of Peter Proud fails to capitalise on it's central idea. Instead of creating something interesting out of the story, director J. Lee Thompson (who has a handful of interesting and important films to his name) seemed to prefer to make it another formulaic 'lost memory' style thriller and the result is a film too unlike too many others to really enthral the viewer. The film focuses on Peter Proud; a college professor who suffers from lucid nightmares. Some investigations go on and Peter soon discovers that he has been reincarnated and so goes to Massachusetts to meet his wife and daughter from his previous life. It's not long before he's integrated into his old family and in a relationship with his previous daughter, but his former wife holds a dark secret.It almost seems like the scriptwriters didn't know how to handle this idea properly as the central idea of the lead character being reincarnated is basically just sprung on the audience and it's difficult to work out how the lead characters actually realised it. The film is not helped by some entirely wooden performances. Lead actor Michael Sarrazin in particular seems very uninterested in the material (cant really blame him) and only Margot Kidder stands out from the support cast, although she has given better performances than this one. The only real thing of interest in the film is the implications of a man who has been reincarnated having a relationship with the grown-up girl that he fathered in his previous life; but in the context of the film it almost seems mundane and the idea is not capitalised upon. Even so, I cant really say that the film is a complete dead loss; despite not capitalising on most ideas, it doesn't get too boring and we do get something of a surprise ending; but I have to say overall that The Reincarnation of Peter Proud is not as good as it's title.