Deadly Messages (1985 TV Movie) User Reviews

Oddball, anything goes-style TV movie

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 15 February 2015]

On the outside, DEADLY MESSAGE appears to be one of those play-it-safe US TV movies of the 1980s, a mildly supernatural thriller about a woman who has the power to communicate with the dead thanks to a handy ouija board. However, this is only a minor sub-plot of the film, which turns out to be something else entirely: a unique combination of false identity drama, a chase thriller, a murder mystery, and a psychological mystery. It's unwieldy and not entirely successful, but the combination of elements means that it's a lot better than I'd expected.

There are huge flaws here, not least a cheat twist ending which means the viewer has no way of solving the mystery beforehand due to information being kept from them. On the other hand, the cast is solid, including heart throb Michael Brandon as the romantic interest and the tag-team of Kurtwood Smith and Dennis Franz as cops. Kathleen Beller is more sympathetic than most as the heroine, mixed up in one of those "is she mad?" style plot lines.

Amid the clichés, I was amused to notice that this film is heavily inspired by THE TERMINATOR, which was released to cinemas a year previously. An entire sub-plot involves the main character being stalked by a killer who wears sunglasses and a leather jacket and who appears to be unstoppable in sequences which bring to mind the Arnie flick. Hell, they even drafted in THE TERMINATOR's Brad Fiedel to do the soundtrack!

above-average; interest grows

[KDWms · 7/10 · 3 April 2003]

I read only a couple of other comments about this film, so, I'll volunteer my two cents, as well. 'Cept I'm not gonna disagree with the other reviewers - I, too, thought that this was an above-average flick. Laura realizes that she is locked out of her apartment and peers through a window. Maybe her housemate (who she doesn't know very well) will see her and let her in. Instead, Laura witnesses a guy choking the roomie. In a panic, she gets the fire department to respond to an alarm at her flat. The cops are also dispatched. In spite of Laura's story, the police can't find a body, or any signs of a forced entry or struggle; so, to them, Laura looks like a kook. To make matters worse, it's learned that it's not the first time when the co-tenant has dropped out of sight. One of Laura's diversions is to play with a Ouija Board. From it she receives information about what she saw, her address, and eventually, herself. Throughout it all, she has difficulty convincing a detective - even her boyfriend - of what she suspects and her own identity. Finally, she is confronted with it actually being HER story. The movie starts out kinda slow, but causes one's interest to increase as it progresses. I hope that the unsympathetic portrayal of the police is exaggerated. I guess it was part of the attempt to show frustration at being disbelieved - like: sure you were abducted by aliens. This dummy also appreciated one of the final scenes, wherein the pieces of the puzzle were nicely summed up by those involved. Not a lot else to praise or badmouth here. Bottom line is: it's time and/or reasonable bucks adequately spent.

Not bad not bad at all

[manson21 · 6/10 · 6 April 2007]

The other day i was having some beers you know having a good time then the next night had a bad hangover so i thought i will watch a movie and a saw deadly messages in my TV book. It's about this woman who comes across a Ouija board in her apartment so her friend start using it and then the other woman comes back went up the fire ladder only to see her being murdered. The cops thinks she's going crazy about the deadly massage's from the Ouija board her boyfriend does not believe her so she goes out to find the truth about her past that she forgot. Anyway i wont spoil the rest of the film in case people not seen it yet. But overall it was a good TV film worth watching 6/10

Is anybody there? Is anybody there?

[bernie-50 · 3 August 2003]

Formula movie and you can pretty much figure the plot and who is who from the beginning. However it is well acted and with out an excess of gore.

After forgetting her key and not being able to get her room mate to answer the door of a third story apartment, Laura Daniels is gutsy enough to use the fire escape. You guessed it she witnesses a murder. Naturally with out clues the police do not believe her. Things start to snow ball as Laura plays with a Quiji board, and figures out she is being stalked. The whole thing would be over in 15 minutes if anyone would believe her. And there are plenty of `Stay in the Car' type scenes. The only thing I guessed wrong was there were no scenes with jumpy cats. Hopefully it will one day come out on DVD.

Made for TV giallo

[BandSAboutMovies · 7/10 · 27 April 2021]

Man, I'm on a Kathleen Beller made-for-TV kinda sorta giallo kick. I'm also a huge fan of Ouija-board-themed movies, even if I refuse to ever have a spirit board in my house. Combine the two and have Jack Bender (The Midnight Hour, Child's Play 3, multiple episodes of Lost and Game of Thrones) and I'm all over it.

Beller plays Laura Daniels, a young girl in love with lawyer Michael Krasnick. When she gets home from a date with him, she watches a black-gloved and masked figure strangle her roommate Cindy Matthews (Sherri Stoner from Reform School Girls!), who had become obsessed by speaking to the ghost of David, who was murdered in the same apartment in 1978.

When the cops show up, all of the evidence - and Cindy's body - are gone. The cops - hey there Dennis Franz and Kurtwood Smith - don't believe Laura, who is being trailed by the killer everywhere she goes.

Laura decides to use the Ouija board and also comes in contact with Mark, who claims to have been the one who has murdered Cindy and announces that he is going to kill her next.

Oh man - this is getting good.

Seriously, even a swim in a pool leads to the killer attacking again, but a doctor thinks that it's all in Laura's head. And when he examines her brain, he discovers that she's received electroshock therapy in the past and may be dealing with either extreme depression or schizophrenia. Her boyfriend can understand all that, but when he learns that the majority of her life story has been taken from a series of books by an author named Laura Brooks.

Actually, I really don't want to spoil this movie for you because the plot gets totally wild and just keeps getting wilder. It's has so much in common with the side of the giallo genre where a woman loses her mind and descends into a nightmarish odyssey of lost memory and revelation.

It was written by William Bleich, who wrote another great movie in this lost woman genre, The Hearse, as well as From the Dead of Night, The Gladiator, A Smoky Mountain Christmas and Danger Island. Nearly all of those movies are going to end up on our site.

Not the worst TV movie

[JohnSeal · 4/10 · 7 September 2002]

Deadly Messages is an uneven but painless piece of entertainment, weaving a psychological subplot into its overarching take on the potential evils of the Ouija board. It's about as spooky as you can expect an 80s TV movie to be, but the cast is reasonably game and the screenplay isn't entirely predictable.

If You Say So

[saint_brett · 5/10 · 19 July 2023]

The movie starts off on the wrong foot by not capitalizing the title screen.

It further sinks into despair when Beller appears with cropped shorts and sides.

She lives in an apartment in upstate somewhere flashy, and has even employed the services of a child of the state from "Nightmare on Elm Street 3" as a babysitter to childmind an Ouija Board. No, it's Violet from "Friday the 13th 5." The one who break dances like a robot.

This hired dream child chick here, Violet, with the two-toned hair, reminds me of back in school, when we used to call people with two-toned hair cat p -

Well, cat urine in more friendly terms.

If anyone's interested in the correct pronunciation of Ouija board, it's not wee-gee. It's wee'ja. It sort of has a silent O.

Oh man, not the family truckster from Walley World again. How many movies did that star in?

What's-her-name looks like Pat Benatar.

She overindulges on happy hour and moonlights in the off hours with a double identity.

Breaking into her own apartment one night results in a citation for trespassing and making false statements.

It's the beginning of a long spiral into her deluded mind about ghosts and boogeymen.

What's-her-name reminds me of Martika.

Man, did Martika look stunning in "that" kitchen video?

Beller's boss discovers that she lied on her job application and loses all her credentials for whatever she does from 9 to 5.

She also loses her marbles when a Pet Shop Boy member attacks her in a public swimming pool, only to be saved by a floaty device in the form of the lead singer from The Village People.

She further descends into madness and turns to pills to add to the burden of her psychosis while hiding the fact that she was once an inpatient at a laughing academy.

It turns out she leads a pseudo-lifestyle under the guidance of some children's novels, is a complete demented but split scatter brain with multiple personalities, and is also addicted to pills.

Beller sort of looks and sounds like Stacey Nelkin.

I know that face - it's Clarence Boddicker from "Robocop."

Thingo looks like Winona Ryder.

Ryder travels up to a mental institution and is captured and labeled Jenny. Great, another identity. Add it to her collection.

I know that face - it's Gus from "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles." "Dell Griffith, how the hell are you?" Now he's an innkeeper for Crazy Clark's Cottages?

Since I have the attention span of a moth, I must confess that this movie lost me way back when Beller's cover was blown about living a lie through a children's book.

I don't understand who this Pet Shop Boy is with the knife or why he wants to kill Beller or Jenny.

I liked the swimming pool part of this. It was a comfort factor. I like the motel and ordering pizza with a warm bath. I loved the tumbleweeds. But the story's confusing.

Was it all in her head?

Very good for a TV movie.

[eddax · 8/10 · 9 November 2002]

I watched this movie initially assuming it was just Lifetime fodder and it started seeming like such. However, the plot became more and more interesting later as the mystery unfolded. The writer of the movie has given an original and quite plausible explanation to what happens to the lead character. The only things that I didn't like were the inclusion of some stereotypes thrillers tend to fall into (e.g. disbelieving cops), and the final scene, which was unnecessary and threw off the flow. 9/10

Suspenseful

[summer1111dg · 10/10 · 19 December 2006]

This is one of my favorite movies. I love watching it. I think Kathleen Beller is perfectly cast as the naive heroine.

The basic plot is that Laura Daniels, a young, single girl living with her lawyer boyfriend in converted hotel apartment building -- one day discovers an old Ouija board on the top shelf of a closet by accident. She decides to start asking it questions. And she starts getting strange messages from the board.

It appears, however, that the Ouija board's previous owner was murdered - and messages from beyond warn Laura that she may be next. All around her are quite dubious of her supposed messages from the beyond.

The movie captures your attention instantly. And there are wonderful character actors who later went on to greater TV fame playing roles in the movie.

I love that the wind howls, branches fall on cars and there are spooky odd characters along the way. And you can't go wrong with a mental hospital playing a role in a thriller! And I especially enjoyed the owners of the motel! Deadly Messages is a fun way to spend a lazy afternoon.

Proof that TV movies used to be better

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 29 December 2006]

I am surprised nowadays how many TV movies I've seen are slow-moving - and yet, their scripts run about 1 hour and 42 minutes today as opposed to 1 hour and 52 minutes some 20 years ago. Even with more time to fill, there were TV movies like "Deadly Messages" around that moved at a quick pace, were suspenseful and entertaining.

The story in "Deadly Messages" continues to evolve until the very end, so there is always a surprise around the corner for the viewer. Laura Daniels (Kathleen Beller) is a pretty young woman living with her attorney boyfriend Michael (Michael Brandon) when one night, as she is trying to gain access to her apartment from the fire escape because she has no keys, she sees the woman staying with them murdered. Afterward, she becomes convinced - with reason - that the killer is after her, especially after a Ouija board sends a message that says "I am going to kill you." The police don't believe her; her concerned boyfriend takes her in for a CT scan, where it's discovered that she's had electroshock therapy. She denies it. Michael then finds more evidence that something is terribly wrong with the woman he thought he knew.

There are parts of "Deadly Messages" that will have you on the edge of your seat, and the suspense really builds. Beller, who seems to be retired now, is a likable actress capable of big histrionics, which were needed for this film. Brandon has less to do, and his part isn't the most sympathetic, but he comes off fine. Dennis Franz is guess what, playing a police detective in this, and it's a very similar character to NYPD Blue's Andy.

Well above average - I love suspense movies; I wish more TV movies were like this one.

Back From The Past...

[azathothpwiggins · 30 August 2022]

In DEADLY MESSAGES, Laura Daniels (Kathleen Beller) finds an old Ouija board in her closet, and is soon being stalked by a knife-wielding maniac. As the story develops, we realize that there's much more going on than just a simple slasher film.

This is an interesting made-for-TV movie. It's a definite thriller, but it also has heavy doses of supernatural / psychological horror. So, it could be viewed as either or both. There's a lot of mystery involved as well.

Ms. Beller has a genuine knack for this sort of tele-terror, making the best of her morphing role. Dennis Franz plays what amounts to a dry run for his -then future- role on NYPD BLUE. Kurtwood Smith has what amounts to a cameo role as the top cop on the case.