The SENDER

   Film (1982). Kingsmere Properties/Paramount. Dir Roger Christian, starring Shirley Knight, Kathryn Harrold, Zeljko Ivanek, Paul Freeman. Screenplay Thomas Baum. 91 mins. Colour.

   This modest melodrama, on the borderline between sf and HORROR, tells of a hospitalized young man (Ivanek) whose PSI POWERS of telepathic projection and TELEKINESIS causemajor disruption. As in VIDEODROME of the same year, the dividing line between the real and the hallucinatory is invisible, to disturbing effect, as bleeding mirrors and severed heads proliferate. It is a crisply told story, though the cod psychiatric explanation (which hinges on a possibly incestuous relationship of the patient with his mother, played by Knight) is less interesting than the phenomena themselves. This was the debut feature of the director, Christian, who had previously worked as set decorator on STAR WARS and as joint art director on ALIEN.

   PN