Psychic

Directed by George Mihalka, Psychic follows college student Patrick Costello (Zach Galligan) as he starts experiencing visions of a serial killer knocking off his victims. It’s familiar territory that is, by and large, employed to sluggish and hopelessly uninvolving effect by Mihalka, as the filmmaker, working from Miguel Tejada-Flores and Paul Koval’s screenplay, delivers a predominantly low-rent thriller that contains few elements designed to initially capture the viewer’s interest and attention – with Mihalka’s ongoing use of choppy visuals to represents Patrick’s visions certainly ranking high on the picture’s list of disagreeable, obnoxious attributes. It’s clear, too, that Psychic‘s arms-length atmosphere is compounded (and then some) by its decidedly less-than-surprising narrative, as the movie, generally speaking, progresses through a watchable yet predictable midsection that contains virtually every twist and development that one might’ve anticipated (including, of course, the stretch in which Patrick becomes a suspect for the brutal murders). By the time the drawn-out, far-from-enthralling climax rolls around, Psychic has cemented its place as a mostly ineffective endeavor that squanders the admittedly affable efforts of its charming leading man.

** out of ****

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