The Psychic

Gremlins star Zach Galligan plays psychic psychology student Patrick Costello, who has a thing for his lecturer Laurel Young (Catherine Mary Stewart), who is currently seeing fellow psychologist Professor Steering (Michael Nouri). Patrick quits his classes so he can date Laurel (who is cute, but she's no Phoebe Cates), but becomes concerned for her safety when, after a series of nightmares in which he sees young women being strangled with a belt, he becomes convinced that Steering is the serial killer currently in the news.

Call me crazy if you like, but Psychic reminded me a bit of Fright Night. There's no vampires in this film, but Galligan reminds me a lot of William Ragsdale, and Michael Nouri definitely has something of Chris Sarandon about him. Also, both films share a similar basic plot: a young man 'sees' the killer responsible for a series of murders, but no-one believes him due to his far-fetched story. Fright Night is by far the superior of the two films, though, Psychic's script and direction being much more pedestrian and predictable (you don't have to be psychic to figure out how the film will end). Thankfully, the strong central performances make the movie a reasonable time-waster, even though it might not remain in the memory for very long.