The Fury Within (1998)

I love this movie so much

So much average

Memorable, crazy movie

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It starts out good, but finishes flat, a promising idea that disappoints. The acting/direction in some of the scenes is wanting. If you have something better to do, don't let this one stop you.This seems to be a low budget affair. There are times when Costas Mandylor's accent seems to have about three variations. One bright spot, the architecture of the house. The movie was made in Queensland, Australia, but you can't tell it from the movie. It is set in California, and goes to great lengths not to show anything recognizable. It is a shame that they didn't go ahead and make the setting Queensland, and shot some local landmarks. One goof: During the baseball game they had the home team at the top of the scoreboard. Anyone who knows baseball, the home team goes on the bottom.

+Major Spoilers+ A much better then you would expect horror movie from down under that tells it all in it's title "The Fury Within". With Jill Hanlons, Ally Sheedy, husband Mike, Costas Mandylor, having a secret affair with Sandy, Jodie Dry, a pretty blond who works in the same office who Mike met, in of all places, in the elevator things begin to happen to the Hanlons that defy explanation. Wild and mysterious dogs and demons seem to appearer out of nowhere terrifying everyone in the Harlon home and then disappearing into thin air leaving nothing but bad memories behind. One scary night at the Harlon house the celling seemed to open up with hundreds of rocks and boulders falling out of it smashing everything in the place but the next morning nothing was found broken not even a matchstick. Everything that happened seemed to point to the Horlans young ten-year old son Jimmy,Vincent Berry, as the culprit and even in school Jimmy is accused of tearing up the school library and painting graffiti on his teachers garage door. Having Jimmy expelled from school and having him sent to psychiatrists for help nothing seemed to work and poor Jimmy had nothing to look forward to but spending the rest of his life in a mental institution. With no rational or scientific explanation for Jimmys suspected actions his parents, in sheer desperation, have him see and be examined by Dr. Stephen Johnson, Steve Bastoni, who specializes in the unknown and supernatural. The Doctor finds out that what's happening to the Hanlons has nothing at all to do with Jimmy. Those actions that he's accused of originate from deep inside the Limbic Reigon of the brain and the brain in question is that not of Jimmy but of his mom Jill Hanlon. It's that discovery that in the end will cost Dr. Johnson his life as well as the life of Mike's lover Sandy who jumps, or falls, into an air-condition fan. Jill who was holding everything in with her husband cheating on her and about to leave her for another woman had somehow, unconsciously, activated the Limbic Reigon deep inside her brain that released the uncontrollable fury that she was trying to suppress all that time. As Jill's home and marriage began to fall apart the fury from deep inside began to get more and more ferocious and deadly with her having no way of stopping it. At the conclusion of the film Jill in order to prevent the fury within her from destroying everyone and everything that it came in contact with, including her husband and children, focused it directly on herself to bring it back from where it came from. As "The Fury Within" ends we see just how high a price Jill paid for making that fateful decision.

Jimmy Hanlon (Vincent Berry), a child of about 10 years old, has gone through a number of recent traumas--he found a local man dead, possibly killed by a ferocious dog, and his parents are separated and probably getting divorced. He also is the center of some mild supernatural events that end up looking like vandalism, and which are interpreted by the adults in his life as him acting out his emotions. As the film goes on, the supernatural events heighten. Is Jimmy making the events happen somehow, or is something else occurring? As long as you don't analyze the plot too much, The Fury Within is a decent made-for-television horror film. The supernatural events were quite engaging and more often than not suspenseful, and the effects were very respectable for a film that surely had a relatively small budget.Another asset is that rather than just being a by-the-numbers shocker, The Fury Within is both literally and metaphorically an examination of typical problems encountered in family breakups due to divorce. The cast is decent to good, and all of the technical aspects, such as cinematography, sound, lighting, etc. are more than competent.After you've watched the film, if you spend too much time trying to analyze plot points, some aspects of the script begin to fall apart--it's not very clear why some events happen to some characters, if the force behind the supernatural events is truly what the final revelation says it is, and some threads are dropped, but maybe that's not so important. The points here are really the casual entertainment value and the allegory about divorce.

If you like horror films this one delivers the goods well enough, with plenty of special effects and at least an attempt to rationalise the thing with a psychological basis. Ally Sheedy's low-key performance tends to increase the effect, making her the fulcrum around which everything moves, but is this really the sort of role she wants to play? The other performances are more than acceptable, but I won't be rushing to see it again.