Psychotronic Man, The

• USA • 1979 • 90m •

• Directed by: Jack M. Sell. • Starring: Peter Spelson, Chris Carbis, Curt Colbert, Robin Newton, Jeff Caliendo, Lindsey Novak, Irwin Lewin, Corney Morgan, Bob McDonald. • Music by: Tommy Irons.

Just as Rocky thinks the world is proceeding along quite well, he dashes out of his shop in a kind of trance, as though possessed. Once outside he is driven to hunt for a victim and after he has found someone, he kills them with whatever forces are latent in his subconscious.

Review:

Image from: Psychotronic Man, The (1979)

One of those films I randomly found on Amazon Prime I decided to give it a go. From the date when the movie was made and the fact the main character had strange powers, I am guessing this is pretty much a Carrie ripoff which there were many. Some that were actually pretty good, The Fury, to this one which is really bad, Psychotronic Man. Obviously a very limited budget by the fact they could not get a decent lead, his hair was like a total joke, and the lack of the guy with psychic powers using said powers.

The film has a barber end his day early and proceed to drive and drive and drive to the point it is night outside and he pulls over to take a nap. He then experiences a dream where his car is flying through the air. He wakes up and goes home to a very nice home with a wife and two kids and just how much does a barber make in Chicago? Well, he has headaches and soon finds out he has powers, of which are never explained. I was thinking aliens or something, but no, no explanation forthcoming. Soon after a couple of kills we end up watching the longest carfoot chase made all the worse by the fact it is not remotely exciting and the guy with super powers uses said powers the minimal amount of times.

The movie was made tolerable as I watched the Rifftrax cut, which for those who do not know are the guys from the last three seasons of MST3K making fun of a movie only we get the entire film rather than the condensed version. It makes seeing a film like this more entertaining and they do a better job than that throwaway Netflix season of MST3K. The film is just very amateurish, which it may have been a student film, if so they did okay. However, just too much stuff does not work to be anything you can take seriously.

So, no, this film is not good and definitely not on the high end of the Carrie ripoff films. When making a film of this type, it is always best to use the powers more than a handful of times and especially use them during the last epic showdown. Unfortunately, this film was too busy padding their film with long drives to start the film and long boring chase scenes than showing us a man with monstrous powers, which is why one tends to watch a film like this in the first place!

Review by Aaron1375 from the Internet Movie Database.