Blyss's Movie Review for:

Main Cast of Characters:

Kevin Bacon...........Tom Witzky

Kathryn Erbe.........Maggie Witzky

Zachary David Cope...........Jake Witzky

Illeana Douglas.........Lisa

Kevin Dunn..........Frank McCarthy

Conor O'Farrell...............Harry Damon

Stephen Eugene Walker...............Bobby

Lisa Weil...............Debbie Kozac

Jenny Morrison...............Samantha Kozac

1999. Rated: R. Genre: Suspense/Horror

"What's the worst that can happen?"

The movie begins with a child playing in the tub, Jake Witzky. He argues his father down about which type of pajamas he wants to wear to bed that night andthe father, Tom relents. When the father leaves, Jake starts talking to someone we cannot say and then he asks the haunting question: "Does it hurt to be dead?"

Tom Witzky is a skeptic in every sense of the word. He seems to only believe in what he can see and touch until his sister-in-law puts him under hypnosis as a joke at a party. While under, Lisa tells him that she wants him to be more open minded. She was still aggravated with him for acting unfavorably when he found out his wife was pregnant with another child and they really could not afford it. While under hypnosis, he sees a girl being murdered and he wakes up from the hypnosis crying. He is disgusted to find out that he blurted his deepest secrets. They go home and Tom dreams of what he saw while under hypnosis. The visions start to get worse and worse and he keeps seeing the same dead young girl. But why him? Did Lisa open a door in his mind that was meant to stay closed? Why was this girl after him? What did she want?

This is one of my favorite Kevin Bacon movies! It is an awesome suspense thriller that really keeps you on the edge of your seat. Kevin Bacon gives a spellbinding performance as a man that now is forced to believe in forces that he never thought existed before that time. His son also had the same power to speak to the dead as his father developed after the hypnosis. That kind of reminded me of "Stephen King's The Shining" because father and son both had the shining and it had been passed down between generations. Same with Tom and Jake. There are a lot of creepy scenes in this film that make it just more the better also. One of my favorites is when Jake is playing and his parents are trying to get him to tell them about the person, Samantha, that he talks to. Jake doesn't answer at first and then he looks up and in a demonic sounding voice replies, "Don't ask the boy anymore questions. Talk to me." That one gives me chills just thinking about it. The other part I really get chills over is when Samantha is on the couch beside Tom. Yikes!

Tom's psychic powers then turn "Dead Zone-ish" when he starts seeing parts of other people's lives and things that will happen that he can stop from being bad. For instance, he has a vision that a neighbor's child was going to try to kill himself and he gets there in time to save his life but not before he shoots himself.

Many other awesome scenes spiral toward an outstanding ending and the one that you really want as a viewer of what is happening. This is a much watch in the Bacon filmography. It rates up there with Hollow Man!

I rate this film: 10

Blyss