Murderous Vision (1991 TV Movie) User Reviews

Much To Appreciate Here Although Plot Weaknesses Prove To be Overwhelming.

[rsoonsa · 5/10 · 28 August 2006]

Designed for television, this work happily is free from most of the irritating evidence that signifies films made for that medium, while enjoying above standard production values, especially when considering a meagre budget, and a good deal of skill is displayed by cast and crew, with only a weakly composed screenplay serving to lessen a viewer's enjoyment. Kyle Robeshaw (Bruce Boxleitner) is a discontented investigator assigned to a dull assignment as member of the "Missing Persons Division" of a large metropolitan area police department when a young female officer, a lifelong friend of Robeshaw, is gunned down while making a routine traffic stop. Due to his despair over her death, and in the face of the expected and obligatory cinematic internecine conflict between Robeshaw and his department supervisors he, in renegade fashion, assumes the task of locating the woman's killer. Despite being ordered by his supervisor to restrict his police function to searching for missing persons, Kyle learns that there may be a junction between the policewoman's slaying and a missing woman file involving one Ellen Greene, and while attempting to unearth clues concerning Greene's disappearance, he meets a close friend of hers, Elizabeth (Laura Johnson), a purported psychic whose mystical insights Robeshaw is determined to utilize during his self-appointed mission to solve both cases in concert. Robeshaw has also cajoled his detective partner from his Division to accompany him as he grows closer to a solution and a probable dangerous showdown with a suspect whom a viewer has learned is a serial killer, a grotesquely unbalanced individual who surgically removes the faces of his victims and preserves them within solution-filled glass jars. Director Gary Sherman ably injects interesting detail into the action, but the script is simply too often absurd, including its off-center depiction of law enforcement investigative procedures, and unanswered questions that devolve from within the storyline, in addition to quality flaws, e.g., a nictitating corpse. Nevertheless, Sherman exercises pacing that is appropriate for creation of suspense, assisted to no small extent by the editing of Ross Albert, while the cinematography of Alex Nepomniaschy is originative throughout, and there is top-flight descriptive scoring from Joseph Renzetti. The cast generally performs well under the director's sure hand, and if supplied with a stronger screenplay, this might very well have been developed into a sterling production.

Visioni Senz Volto

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 20 January 2024]

I was watching Visioni Senz Volto on YouTube and I thought, "Is that Bruce Boxleitner?"

And that's how I learned that this was an American TV movie and not an Italian giallo.

The man who was Scarecrow and Tron is Detective Kyle Robeshaw, a cop stuck on the missing persons cases, when he discovers that a serial killer who was dating a cop before he killed her. The female police officer was once a friend of his, so he takes her case personally and investigates it on his own. For such a tough cop, he has no problem partnering with Elizabeth (Laura Johnson), a woman with psychic visions whose best friend is missing.

Directed by Gary Sherman (Dead and Buried, Vice Squad, Poltergeist III) and written by Paul Joseph Gulino, this reminds me that there was once a time when TV movies had killers who spoke to the voice of a doctor they once killed who sends him out to murder people and slice their faces off, then put them in jars with their names on them.

It's not exactly a perfect movie, but hey, it was a serial killer movie in the 90s before we were sick of the idea. Robert Culp is in it, which sometimes is all I need to watch a movie.