Trailer—The Psychotronic Man

The Psychotronic Man_720p(480P)

source: The Psychotronic Man

I only saw this because it was given the Rifftrax (Mystery Science Theater) treatment. If you watch it "with the jokes", I'd give it eight stars. As it stands, the movie is pretty fun. It shows a lot of the style and flair of the 1970's and has a hypnotic soundtrack. The story of an average man having extraordinary problems plays out in an interesting way. The acting isn't bad as much as it's real. The characters are believable, just not charismatic.

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 car/foot 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!

I saw this movie in the early 80s on-board a Navy ship--we had little choice in our movie selections. I currently watch between 10-20 movies a week. To this day I haven't seen anything, even the legendary films of Ed Wood, that is as bad as this film. In one scene near the end of the film, there were close-ups of National Guard troops preparing their weapons. These were WW II era bolt action rifles. At a close up of one of the troops pulling back on the bolt to load the rifle you do not see anything going into the breach. And those eyes of the title character. I think the makeup was purchased from the nearest dollar store. This film is only recommended for those individuals who enjoy watching the worst films ever made.

THE PSYCHOTRONIC MAN is an indie horror flick that seems to have been made in order to rip-off PSYCHIC KILLER, the entertaining little video nasty wannabe. This one's a very cheap-looking film with muted colours and on-the-street camerawork; if you're familiar with the kinds of thrillers put out by Vinegar Syndrome then you'll know the look. An ordinary guy discovers a talent for killing people with his mental powers so he goes on a random killing spree while the cops hunt him down. It's not very gory or suspenseful, and the acting is as basic as you'd expect, but I did enjoy the first half of this movie. Sadly, the second half gets way too bogged down in silly slow motion action scenes which merely act as padding in order to get the running time up to the required length, but drag the pacing down to a snail's crawl in the process.

How bizarre… It's anyone's guess what's truly going on here. Especially after watching the intro where the opening credits go on for a while. And I mean awhile. It was the title that caught my eye "Revenge of the Psychotronic Man". It screams "Hey, look at me"! Anyhow what I got myself into was something bug-eyed. Think of "The Incredible Melting Man", which was made a couple years earlier and the tone is similar, but without the graphic context. Still it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, but you can see why it's virtually unknown. While being a penniless production, its clunky, dry and tawdry nature remains for most part rather entertaining. Why is it entertaining… because of just how unusual and surprisingly twisted it plays out? Even when it seems to concentrate on uneventful filler, there's something unnervingly atmospheric and random that makes it hypnotic. Even when some scenarios are risible (like the first death with the constant slow-motion) and long-winded (there's a lot of driving going on). Something which would hit you straight away would be the creepy score that overpowers many sequences and that of some oddball sound-effects like the ominous bell chimes that comes and goes. You get more of a rush from the music than the visual action. The direction is virtually non-existent, but the gritty location work of Chicago and the shadowy imagery gives it a bit of a moody edge. While the performances are on the stilted side, but durable enough and dialogues remain lacklustre. Bemusing low-grade horror Sci-fi.

... from the 90 mn of the Psychotronic Man, you easily have 30 mn of driving through the countryside with annoying bad country music. That leaves, say, 60 mn of pure movie. Pure indeed. This is not a movie. This is not an essay about a movie. This does not bear any resemblance with art or cheesy fun or anything connected with the movie business. There are some movies which are so bad you can find them amusing, fun, easy to follow because of their badness... well, fascinating stuff. The only fascinating thing here is the will of the director to show us how good the psychotronic man is at driving a car. He is, definitely. He's the best to lead you on the way to total boredom. This is probably one of the only movie in all movie history where a blank screen can be a better spectacle.

Stop experimenting with drugs, kids. Al you need is... a good mixture of shampoo & hair lotion. At least, according to this movie. A depressed barber starts drinking his own products and becomes... Psychotronic Man! The walls of his sanity come crumbling down also, but I guess that's just a minor side-effect. Oh yes, this is a fairly inept film featuring lousy acting and a lot of filler-footage. Many scenes get padded with various songs and even a car chase manages to be too long and uneventful. But nevertheless, the look & feel of the film drips with vintage retro-ness, the soundtrack is cool and the whole film feels like a bad acid trip you can't get out of. It's actually a fun flick to watch, when in the right state of mind. Another way to watch this film, is by simply turning off the sound, and mixing your favorite late 70's & early 80's psychedelic rock tunes to it. The editor (Bill Reese) shows us this can be fun, as the car chase sequence already features cuts to the rhythm of a groovy soundtrack. An out-of-the-ordinary, experimental piece of independent drivel. It really feels as unique as it looks inept. Lovers of obscure cult cinema should give it a watch. I watched about 13 films (which we expected to suck badly) in two days, and "The Psychotronic Man" was one of two that actually stood out or proved to be more memorable (and better) than most of the other ones. Good Badness? Oh yes, even for half of the right reasons. 5/10 and 8/10