Black Light (1998) Poster

(1998)

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4/10
Let The Sun Shine In
sol121813 April 2006
**SPOILERS** Uneven and somewhat ridicules thriller that has local psychic Sharon Avery, Tahneew Welch,going through all the slings and arrows from the police newspapers. Sharon eve has her befuddled and frustrated husband Larry, Currie Graham crewing the carpet as she's thought to be an unstable kook until her visions attract the serial murder Billy Morton. Whom Sharon claims to be in psychic contact with to make her his next victim.

We see Sharon at first working with the police on a missing person case that she solves with the little boy later found murdered in an alley just where Sharon says he was. The killer who's on the scene follows Sharon back home in his car and runs her off the road causing Sharon to lose her eyesight. Back home and feeling sorry for herself and not wanting to live anymore Sharon ties a weight to her body and throws herself into the swimming pool but just there and then her visions, psychic not normal, comes back to her as she sees a young girl being murdered in a park. Quickly changing her mind, by swimming to the surface, about leaving this realm of existence Sharon goes back to her psychic visions in order to help the police to prevent or solve the murder.

Back with the living it seems that no one knows, and Sharon never tells anyone in the movie, about her attempted suicide and new insight on going on living but the movie audience. Sharon desperately calls the police about her vision of murder and tries to stop it before it happens. The police that includes Insp. Frank Schumann, Michael ironside, and his partner Det. Fay Howard, Anne Marie Loder, are not at all impressed with Sharon's revelations. This action on the part of Schuman & Howard seemed a bit strange when we saw her earlier in the movie solving a murder for this same police department, and police officers, and probably having solved a number of other cases in the past!

Finding the missing girl murdered like and where Sharon said the police, and her husband Larry, are more against Sharon using her psychic abilities then ever before with the exception of the now believing Insp. Schumann who's told by his superiors to have Sharon put off any future missing persons cases. This gives you the impression that someone upstairs in the department is trying to have them covered up.

The movie "Black Light" has Sharon's husband Larry, a computer software engineer, working with Dr. Anna Gdard, Lori Hallier,who's treating his wife to cure her of her blindness. Dr. Gdard thinks that with the help of a new visual system that her medical computer company is producing she can get Sharon's sight back. As Sharon's sight improves her visions are recorded on video tape showing just who the serial killer is which has him move in for the kill on Sharon to quite her, and her visions, forever.

Full of plot-holes and misdirections by the movie-makers that by the time you should get really into the movie you lose all interest in it. Just by the credits you already know before the movie even starts that there's no suspense in "Black Light" to who the killer is since he's none of the people you would usually suspect in the movie are not playing the role of the killer; he's just actor Billy Morton in the credits!

The ending with Sharon being chased by Morton is so ridicules with him acting more blind then she does and not even being able to find her even though she seems to know her way around the house and front lawn with out as much as tripping over anything. The films conclusion is too outlandish to even describe, you have to see it for yourself, with Sharon defying physical and mechanical science as well as common sense to do in the crazed killer and with Insp. Schumann who Morton strangled earlier in the movie comes back from the dead but not in time to save Sharon;it turned out that Sharon didn't need his help at all!
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2/10
Annoying and logic-defying... it doesn't get any worse than this uh?
bellino-angelo201418 April 2024
Warning: Spoilers
I have heard for years about BLACK LIGHT curiously enough because it's one of the movies where in Italy Michael Ironside was dubbed by the voice dubber of Clint Eastwood in nearly all his films and coincidentally that voice dubber died a month before I saw this movie (July 2023). I didn't saw this movie for the dubber but because Ironside is one of the guys for which I try to look for and watch all his movies because he is sometimes better than the movies he does but here it wasn't the case.

Sharon Avery (Tahnee Welch) it's a psychic that is the target of jokes by the police and even her husband Larry (Currie Graham) can't believe her anymore. This goes on until somehow Sharon's visions attract the attention of an unnamed serial killer and she seems to have a connection with the killer. Inspector Frank Schumann (Michael Ironside) investigates, and trouble follows also for the viewer's patience.

The first problem of this movie is that the lead looked like a caricature and not like a real woman. For having some istances of this, in the beginning Sharon is working with the police on the case of a missing little that she finds murdered in an alley where she thought the boy was there waiting.

Second the movie was so full of plot holes that you can drive a truck through them. Later when Sharon loses eyesight she tries to drown in the pool but suddenly her sight returns and she has the vision of a girl murdered in a park, and then she goes to the police for risolving the murder. And yet the police is so stupid to accept only her vision when in the real world they actually want proof. Schumann in fact goes in the park and finds the girl murdered, and now Schumann is probably the only one who believes Sharon.

Third there is the ending that goes on and on and on and on. The killer arrives to Sharon's house and he chases her, and we are treated to a ridiculous cat and mouse chase with a killer blinder than her victim that knows very well her way all through her house. After Frank Schumann arrives he is nearly killed by the killer but survives only to be killed again and this time definitely. And then there is a moment that seriously defies logic. When Schumann is nearly dying by the pool Sharon is under water hiding from the killer, she then notices a gun on the floor of the pool and you wouldn't certainly expect this but she fires a shot from under the water and shoots the killer a few seconds after he killed Schumann... how irrealistic can you get? After staying underwater for so long the gun should have stopped working but nope, it continues working just for making the viewer scratch his head.

Overall a terrible thriller not recommended even for die hard fans of the genre or fans of bad movies because it's not even worth it. My 2 would be only for Ironside's performance because he tried despite probably knowing he was in a bad movie and couldn't get out of it. But for the rest, all worthless.
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1/10
You have to see this movie ...
CeNedra10120 February 2005
Warning: Spoilers
... to really appreciate all the bad movies you have seen before, because compared to this movie, they all have been entertaining ...

If you want to see some really bad performance of almost all actors in this movie - this is your film to watch.

If you want to see a movie where nobody acts logical - hey - go and rent this movie.

Or do you think this is logic? You are blind, there is a killer in your house that wants to kill you and you manage to knock him out. You run out of the house, hop in the cop car that is standing in front your driveway with a strangled cop sitting in there, who - with all logic - should be dead, because he was strangled, but you manage to loosen the cord around his neck and he moves, but doesn't come to, you take his gun (remember, you are blind so who do you want to shoot?) - and go back to the house instead of yelling for help and run to your neighbors? And surprise - you run into the killer who knocks you out! That is just one example of this logic-defying script.

Really, people, don't waste your time or money. Watch a real good movie - like Man on Fire :)
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2/10
Dark Shi*, visions of blandness
martinrpm14 February 2009
Warning: Spoilers
At any given time there are thousands of excellent actors out of work. If you want to make a low budget movie you could easily find top rate performers to make up a cast. That is not the case in this film. Not that the acting is all bad. some decent performances are there. my main complaint is that it is about a clairvoyant who actually archives.... spoilers here, nothing. Her supportive and mostly loving husband ends up leaving her because he can not cope with what he believes is her delusion of second sight, which is fair enough as she has saved no-ones life. or caught the killer. The detective on the case, Michael Ironsides,lets have him as we can not afford Jack Nicholson. does believer her. Tahnee Welsh is very poor as the blind clairvoyant. It ends up with the loving husband coming back to save her. being killed by the child killer, Micheal Ironside being saved by her, and Tahnee in the arms of the detective ignoring the fact that the man she was married to, that came back to save her, is lying dead on the kitchen floor. Save two hours of you life and avoid. I only gave it 2 stars because some scenes are quite gripping and Currie Graham is quite cute
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7/10
An OK thriller.
Hermit C-21 July 1999
This mystery/thriller goes over ground that has been trod before, but it does a decent job of it. A clairvoyant woman continues to have visions after she's accidentally blinded. She thinks she can help the police catch a child killer with these visions. Her husband is skeptical; a police inspector is more hopeful, and attracted to her as well. This movie doesn't give us the common scenario where several likely suspects are pointed up, so that you're sure that the least-likely character did it. Tahnee Welch stars as the woman and Michael Ironside is the inspector.
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