The Oracle

Vapid little film that unimaginatively stumbles through every trite cliché about spiritism: contacting the other side with a Ouija-type device, a restless poltergeist, a demonic possession, etc. It’s a real déjà vu fest made even more annoying by technical and acting mediocrity.

Fortunately, a few flashes of unintentional humor provide a modicum of entertainment. Along those lines, it would be impossible to ignore the absurd bumbling of the heavy-set, gender-ambiguous contract killer named Farkas who, hired to take out Jennifer, fails miserably at every turn. First time up to bat, the killer, dressed as a French maid, tries to throw her over a high-rise balcony, but a drunken party guest intervenes. Moments later, the “maid” drags her into an empty kitchen, turns on the gas burner, and tries to fry her face on it, but Jennifer saves herself with a pitcher of hot coffee and a frying pan. Next, Farkas launches a “Carmegeddon”-style road rage attack, but the speeding car can’t seem to catch Jennifer running in high heels on a snowy sidewalk. Finally, wielding a big fire axe (!), the killer is seemingly unable to summon the necessary coordination (dyspraxia?), and amazingly manages to miss the whimpering target. The screenplay is more porous than Swiss cheese, the dialogue duller than dishwater, and the pacing slower than molasses in January.

Some bizarre chromatic choices and a pair of effective splatter effects partially redeem the film (not so much for their actual – rather sloppy – execution, but rather for the odd choice of veering towards Grand Guignol territory within a typically anemic sub-genre of horror).

Finally, it seems director Roberta Findlay had a thing for mustachioed men, given that pretty much every male cast member sports the same classic porn ‘stache.