Trailer—Impulse

A fantastic idea, about losing control over animal impulses, is bogged down in simplistic thought and poorly directed scenes. The film starts out creepy, but becomes muddled in scene after stilted scene of sex and violence. There is a distinct dirty vibe in the movie that never seems to go anywhere. A man pees on a car, the sheriff tries to shoot some delinquent kids, and a mother stands by as her kids attempt to burn one of her friends. It is all so vile. Only one character, Tim Matheson, has any other kinds of impulses such as curiosity. There are a few effective scenes such as Hume Cronyn's doctor playfully cutting off the oxygen to one of his patients and Tim Matheson introducing tiny Tim Matheson to a young girl. Meg Tilly is completely wasted in a boring role as is Bill Paxton. It is really Tim Matheson's movie and he is not bad. The main problem of the movie is lazy direction that kills every scene before it has a chance to live.

A small town is hit by an earthquake, somehow causing the townsfolk to lose all sense of propriety. Enter Jennifer and her boyfriend Stuart (Meg Tilly and Tim Matheson), who arrive to investigate the strange behavior of Jennifer's mum. It doesn't take long for the pair to discern that something's seriously wrong in Pleasantville. The residents seem to have no self-control as they frolic, fight, shag, and generally misbehave. Jennifer's brother (Bill Paxton) develops a creepy attitude problem. Even the town doctor (Hume Cronyn) has become a menace! Can Jen and Stu uncover what's going on before succumbing to the madness themselves? IMPULSE is a solid sci-fi thriller with a host of interesting characters exhibiting bizarre behaviors. Ms. Tilly and Mr. Matheson are very good in their bewildered, sleuthing roles. Be sure to watch this to the end for a wicked surprise!...

I saw this movie when I was a teenager and it has always affected my view of behavior when trouble suddenly spikes in any particular city or state. This movie is written, directed and acted very well. Though it's been said that it is the other side of The Body Snatchers, this movie isn't so much on sci-fi end. It is of the earth and the likely hood of the source could be a real thing (and may have been, somewhere already) It is creepy and disturbing and stands up to time.

City girl Meg Tilly receives a horrifying phone call from her mother and, understandably shaken, returns home to her family's rural digs, only to be faced with a mystery: why are all the homespun residents acting out in bizarre and unsettling ways? Radiation thriller, with barely a nod to ecology, has small town residents going berserk, which (laughably) includes two women gazing at each other with desire in a public place and Tim Matheson receiving oral attention from a girl on an office bench. The picture is too silly for words, wasting Tilly's wistfulness and quiet intensity on trash while forcing itself into a corner it can't possibly hope to get out of. Some of the cinematography by Thomas Del Ruth is good (particularly a fire sequence set inside a garage), though he is let down by the scrappy editing--and a fairly bathetic finale. Simplistic screenplay has nary a surprise nor a shred of originality up its sleeve. *1/2 from ****

"Impulse" is a movie for which I had relatively high expectations: the idea of people losing the ability to control their impulses and totally disregarding all the established social rules sounds very, very intriguing. However, the result we get here is (despite a few unexpected twists) a disappointing and very slow-paced (there is a dialogue-free passage where a man simply walks around for about seven minutes) thriller. George Romero had used basically the same story ten years earlier in "The Crazies" - and he did it much better. (**)

Thank the Lord of Darkness; no eyliens from outer space and no munsters from the underworld! At least, that's my interpretation. I find comparisons with 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' and the Zombie franchise way over the line. In 1984, Meg Tilly still played pretty, vulnerable girls. Eventually she would excel in eccentric or batshit crazy characters. That's when I began to notice her and became a fan. She's one of the greatest 'B' actresses around, and till this day scandalously underrated. A bit flawed movie (scripting & pacing) but it's worth the watch. There's good (and even modestly hot) action, it does well without special effects, it's by far not as predictable as other films in the genre. And it has a young and radiant Meg Tilly.

Im not a big Tim Matheson fan but i have to admit i liked this film.It was dark and a small bit disturbing with some scenes a bit edgy,i don't know were to classify this film its a bit SF and a bit horror slash thriller.I saw this at about 2.00am or so on my local channel there was nothing else on so i decided to watch it.If you have not seen this film id recommend it its not really that bad,the characters are interesting enough but not really explored to their full potential which could have made this film even more better.I don,t know if this film went to the cinema but it felt like it was made for TV or went straight to video,i for one would buy this if it,s on DVD it fits well with my type of film and has a small bit of the X-FILES story attached to it.Government undertakings or shifty corporations involved in dodgy shadowy dealings.Overall a good film.

I wasn't expecting much from this when it came on TV and was half-watching while doing computer stuff but it pretty soon drew me in. The characters and their interactions were much more realistic than I expected and the acting was really good. Last night I watched World War Z a big budget 'zombie' film from 2013 starring Brad Pitt and it was really poor - Impulse is a far more mature and involving treatment of a broadly similar theme.

Part of me doesn't know how to rate this, because I saw it years and years ago, but it's one of those films which left a vivid impression on me. "Impulse" is the story of a town who due to an unknown chemical in the milk supply(the townspeople never know) begin to lose all impulse control. What follows are increasingly disturbing scenes, which flow into each other, blankly, as a sheriff opens fire on young delinquents, a mother watches nonchalantly as her children light one of her friends on fire, doctors turn off life support, and sexual laws and norms completely breakdown. It's a bleak film, where impulses like curiosity, the desire to save others, are spare, and sex and violence all but absolute by the films apocalyptic end, involving a government cleansing with a crop duster. One of those odd sci-fi films you watch late at night and confuse for a dream till see the box in the video one day. Be interesting to take a second look.