Horror 2025 Countdown: Night Visions (1990)

Night Visions (1990), dir. Wes Craven, Wes Craven Films/MGM Telecommunications 

Wes Craven's career was full of highs and lows. Which would this one be?

Aura (Angela Alvardo) is just a busy trying to live her life to the fullest, even if her boyfriend is deeply annoyed by her choosing to dance with men that are not him. She has a public fight with him, so when she's found dead in a parking lot, it seems to be an open and shut case. 

Police Sgt. Thomas Mackey (James Remar) thinks so to, and he doesn't care about this whole bleeding heart chain of evidence, innocent until proven guilty crap. Nope, he'll get a confession the old fashioned way.

Turns out the old fashioned way is wildly illegal, so now Mackey has a choice: Ten day suspension or he works with Dr. Sally Powers (Loryn Locklin) to figure out who the killer is. Dr. Powers is a criminal psychopathology expert, in that she literally turns off her personality and absorbs the personas from those around her. 

Seriously, she lays down on the taped outline at the crime scene and has a seizure, thus letting her know the subject had been raped. 

Mackey is really not on board with this, but the commish (Francis X. McCarthy) breaks it down. Dr,. Powers saw her family murdered when she was a child and taking on other personas is the only way she can function.

Sounds like she should really be in therapy, but what do I know?

Mackey and Powers try to figure out where the killer will strike next, using and drawing clues that any halfway competent lawyer could get thrown out with minimal effort. 

Lord, this feels like a pilot that didn't get picked up and it's easy to see why. Remar does his best, but the premise does him no favors. Disappointing and easy to see why this would be Craven's last step into the world of TV movies.