Željko Ivanek, Slovenia-born character actor best known for very successful roles of lawyers and authority figures on US television, had quite an impressive screen debut as title character of The Sender, 1982 British horror film directed by Roger Christian. The plot begins with young man (played by Ivanek), sleeping near the road only to wake up and try committing spectacular suicide by drowning in the lake. He is ultimately rescued and brought to mental hospital, with his identity remaining mystery due to amnesia and lack of documents. After being named “John Doe 83” he brings attention of sympathetic psychiatrist Dr. Gail Farmer (played by Kathryn Harrold) who tries to treat him. She, however, begins to experience strange visions, hallucinations and unexplained phenomena and that appears to also be happening with other patients in the hospital. Dr. Farmer is visited by mysterious and sinister-looking woman (played by Shirley Knight) who claims to be patient’s mother and demands that he is released. Her unexplained disappearance leads Dr. Farmer to conclude that John Doe possesses telepathic abilities which also allow him to project his dreams and nightmares on other people. Dr. Denman (played by Paul Freeman), Dr. Famer’s initially sceptical colleague, accepts that theory but wants to cure John Doe’s condition by performing dangerous surgery.
The Sender was feature directorial debut of Roger Christian, former art director “Oscar”-awarded for his work on Star Wars and later becoming notorious for directing infamous Battlefield: Earth. In this film he does a decent job, putting relatively small budget to good use. His only flaw in this film is very slow pacing, which could represent major problem for many viewers, especially in the first part. On the other hand, cast is very good, including Ivanek, who would later play somewhat similar character in Roland, one of the early and memorable episodes of The X-Files. He is accompanied by some very good character actors, especially those playing John Doe’s fellow patients, while veteran actress Shirley Knight provides extremely chilling and effective portrayal of John Doe’s mother. Christian also had an inventive script by Thomas Baum at his disposal, which made interesting variations on some plot ideas from Carrie, and which would later influence the authors of Dreamscape and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Another great talent involved in this film was Trevor Jones, composer who provided a very effective score. Although at times it looks much longer than its hour and half of running time would suggest, The Sender could be recommended as very solid combination of science fiction, horror and psychological thriller.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/ Leofinance blog https://leofinance.io/@drax.leo Cent profile https://beta.cent.co/@drax Minds profile https://www.minds.com/drax_rp_nc Uptrennd profile https://www.uptrennd.com/user/MTYzNA
Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax 1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
