Whispers (1990)

Author: Brett Gallman
Submitted by: Brett Gallman   Date : 2012-03-16 07:31
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Written by: Dean R. Koontz (novel), Anita Doohan (screenplay)
Directed by: Douglas Jackson
Starring: Victoria Tennant, Jean LeClerc and Chris Sarandon


Reviewed by: Brett G.







Fear shouts. Terror whispers.


I’ll confess to not being overly familiar with Dean Koontz outside of his works that have been adapted into films (namely Watchers, Phantoms, and Intensity). As reductive (and likely unfair) as this may sound, he’s always just been a B-side to Stephen King for me, a conception that was likely perpetuated by that old Family Guy gag that features Koontz being run over by a car. At any rate, if Whispers is any indication, it might be worth going back and checking out some of the ones I’ve overlooked. Not that Whispers is particularly good or anything--no, it’s far from that, but it is kind of delightfully nuts once it gets going.

You’d never guess it at first, though, since it begins as a cut-rate woman-in-peril slasher-of-the-week deal. Hilary (Victoria Tennant) is a writer who finds herself being stalked by psychopath (Jean LeClerc), though there’s initially no evidence of this, leaving the two detectives (Chris Sarandon and Peter MacNeill) with little to go on; in fact, the accused guy has a pretty good alibi when he’s confirmed to be at his home that’s several miles away. This leaves Hilary questioning her sanity until Bruno shows up again in the hopes of strangling the life out of her. Bruno is actually comically persistent; when he’s initially thwarted, he doesn’t even bother to really lick his wounds. Instead, he chills in the elevator shaft and sleeps outside of Hilary’s room overnight, waiting for the right moment to strike.

It’s all for naught, however, as she stabs him to death--presumably. Somehow, he just keeps going back, and Whispers doesn’t really set off onto any interesting path until Tennant and Sarandon head off to unravel the mystery of his bizarre resurrection. Before that point, almost everything about it is terribly stiff: the police procedural, the acting, the dialogue. Even Sarandon, who had proven to be remarkably charismatic in films like Fright Night and Child’s Play, seems to be forced at gunpoint into spouting this ridiculous dialogue. Chemistry between he and Tennant is almost non-existent, with their Skinemax-style lovemaking scene being especially awkward. Besides Bruno’s somewhat humorous doggedness, the only real spark comes from MacNeill’s wildly misogynist detective, who somehow seems to be the only person who knows the type of junk he’s starring in.

To be fair to everyone else, the truly junky section of the film doesn’t show up until about an hour in. Though there are some subtle hints at weirdness, such as Bruno’s occult interests and his father’s weird funeral instructions, Whispers eventually spirals into one weird territory after another. Sarandon and Tennant are still about as fascinating watching paint dry, but nearly everyone they encounter seems to have eaten paint chips. There’s the coroner who may or may not love his corpses a little too much, the weird bookstore owner who casually reveals his belief in Satanism, and (my personal favorite) the old whorehouse owner who finally reveals all of the big secrets. Say what you want about Whispers, but I have a certain amount of respect for any film that features exposition dump via an aged harem keeper. And this isn’t even to speak of Bruno’s family, the Clavels, who are the strangest of all, having dabbled in all sorts of dark arts and whatnot.

Sadly, the eventual explanation kind of undercuts and deflates a lot of the more outrageous possibilities; still, it’s no less trashy, and Jean LeClerc gets plenty of discomforting and (unintentionally) hilarious moments of self-love. Really, the last thirty minutes of Whispers are at odds with the rigid, grim-faced seriousness of the opening premise; somehow we go from a woman being stalked in her apartment to something altogether different and supernaturally-tinged. The problem is that Douglas Jackson directs it with the pace and look of something that’s more befitting of a sitcom, which I guess makes sense since he’s predominantly churned out TV movies (though he was also responsible for the abhorrent Paper Boy in 1994). Something like Whispers deserves a cast and crew that’s aware of how insane its plot is; the one here just sleepwalks through everything, as if no one really cared to adapt this pulpy junk into anything particularly worthwhile.

Make no mistake: as it’s presented here, Whispers is delightfully convoluted and trashy supermarket novel fare. It’s probably a film that should be remade, even though it’s not likely to happen given how obscure it is; plus, Koontz’s name hasn’t exactly been a huge draw in years, so we’re stuck with this sloppily delivered and dutifully acted version, complete with a swanky soundtrack (courtesy of Fred Mollin, who subbed in for Harry Manfrendini on a couple of Friday the 13th sequels). Whispers is partly Canadian, which must explain why Scorpion has released it to DVD alongside the likes of Thrillkill and Mark of Cain in an attempt to fill out the “Canadian cable-movie” niche. Their release of Whispers fares a bit better than those two, at least in terms of presentation; though the full frame aspect ratio is incorrect, it’s still decent looking for the most part, and not particularly washed out. Whispers probably hasn’t looked this good since people flipped past it on Showtime 20 years ago. That’s probably still an ideal option for most, but those with a soft spot for this kind of crap will stop and take a peek. Rent it!



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