Visions of Terror (1994) starring Barbara Eden, Ted Marcoux, Missy Crider, Joan Pringle, Steven Anthony Jones, David Marciano, Michael Nouri directed by Sam Pillsbury Movie Review

Visions of Terror (1994)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Barbara Eden in Visions of Terror (1994)

I Dream of Jesse

Everyone knows that if you watch enough movies there comes a point when they just start repeating themselves, a story from a movie used many years ago suddenly resurfaces in a new movie with a few embellishments. This is definitely that case with TV movies and as I watched "Visions of Terror" it reminded me of a much more recent movie called "Claire" as both build a storyline about a woman with psychic abilities helping the police. The irony is both movies are on a par with each other despite more than a decade in-between them yet "Visions of Terror" has something else, it has Barbara Eden and fans of the "I Dream of Jeannie" actress automatically like it because of her, ignoring the fact it is cheesy, dull and full of flaws.

Now "Visions of Terror" is actually a sequel to "Visions of Murder", which I am yet to see, but you can watch this movie without seeing the first. You may be left a bit in the dark as to the significance of Jesse's relationship with her daughter Hilary and the fact Jesse is known as a psychic psychiatrist but it doesn't make it too confusing. The reason why is that "Visions of Terror" is quite straight forwards, a cop is killed and Jesse finds herself involved in the case, trying to uncover who the killer is and becoming close to the dead cop's partner. There is also a subplot going on surrounding Jesse's relationship with her daughter which adds to the background noise but that is it.

Michael Nouri in Visions of Terror (1994)

The trouble with "Visions of Terror" is that it is poorly written with lots of gaping holes in the storyline and a less than subtle suggestion of who the killer really is long before we ever get to the big reveal. The only semi decent thing about it is a scene where Jesse deciphers a code in a book a scene which is unfortunately played out cheesily but has a cleverness to it.

The thing is that "Visions of Terror" relies on Barbara Eden and if you are a big fan of the actress then it could be absolutely terrible and you wouldn't even care. But if you are not and are watching purely because of it being a movie then it all ends up very corny with the lack of solid plot spoiling things. Even the supporting performances with Michael Nouri as Lt. David Zaccariah fail to lift this to be even average.

What this all boils down to is that simply if you love Barbara Eden then "Visions of Terror" will be entertaining but if you are not a fan it will end up hugely flawed with far too many gaping holes and unsubtle clues.


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