BLACK LIGHT, a Canadian direct-to-video thriller, is a convoluted concoction of murder and paranormal phenomena. The film features Tahnee Welch as a blind clairvoyant who leads police to a serial killer only to become his next target.
Clairvoyant since childhood, Sharon Avery (Tahnee Welch) uses her gift to help police track a serial killer who is preying on young children. After a car accident robs her of her eyesight and her psychic abilities, Sharon is despondent. She tries to drown herself, but the trauma brings about
another vision of a child in peril. Sharon warns Inspector Frank Schumann (Michael Ironside), who initially dismisses her insights. But when a victim turns up matching the description Sharon gave police, Schumann brings her on the case.
Sharon's resentful husband Larry (Currie Graham) leaves her. More determined than ever to catch the killer, she sets herself up as bait by going on the local news and taunting him. When the police apprehend their prime suspect, Sharon is believed to be safe. Meanwhile, Larry digitally enhances an
electronic image of the killer transmitted by Sharon's brainwaves during laser therapy on her eyes. When the image sharpens, he realizes that the police nabbed the wrong guy. Schumann, who has developed feelings for Sharon, discovers that the killer is still on the loose when he receives a phone
call saying that the arrested suspect had an alibi. It's too late, though, the killer strangles Schumann, murders Larry, and tries to drown Sharon in a pool, who frees herself and shoots her stalker. Sharon is reunited with Schumann, who survived his attack.
BLACK LIGHT attempts to put a twist on the woman-in-jeopardy theme by endowing its blind heroine with a unique (and convenient) ability to psychically "see" perilous situations as they occur. But the device is so preposterously employed that each successive development tops the last for sheer
absurdity. In Sharon's final showdown with the killer, she uses her psychic vision to locate Schumann's gun, which has fallen into the pool. She surfaces with the gun and aims it at the killer, who is struggling with Schumann. Though Sharon previously stated that her visions were seen through the
killer's eyes, she sees him from her own perspective, clearly enough to distinguish him from Schumann and fire a bull's-eye shot to his chest.
Welch plays the central role with a determined seriousness, but she can't overcome the implausibility of her character's actions--such as intentionally luring the deranged killer to her home. Sure, she's strong, independent, and psychically gifted. But she's also blind, alone, and supposedly
unable to control when her visions will occur. The thin script makes no attempt to carve out an identity for the killer, who is billed simply as "killer." What the film lacks in dramatic tension is not made up for with sexual tension. The only hint of eroticism is a brief poolside clinch between
Welch and Ironside, and though Welch goes into the pool twice, she does so fully clothed. (Violence, sexual situations.) leave a comment
