Doctor Movie:Episode 304: The First Power

Show Notes

Join Doctor Movie for a look at your favorite movies from behind the steering wheel. We drive right into the early 90s with this classic cop drama/ supernatural killer flick that delivers. Lets hang out with Lou Diamond Phillips and take on The First Power.

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Lou Diamond Phillips and a red-headed psychic and a nun walking to a bar.

Wait a minute, no, it's another show.

Lou Diamond Phillips, a red-headed psychic and a nun team up together to fight a body-hopscotching, satanic killer from beyond the dead.

All that and how to make your own peanut butter cookies right here on Doctor Movie.

Hey everybody, what's happening?

Welcome back to the show.

As you can tell, we've got another humdinger from the sneaking out of the 80s into the 90s time period.

We are talking about 1990s, the first power, Lou Diamond Phillips.

I mean, I know we normally talk about the cast a little later on, but you know, it's Lou Diamond Phillips.

You gotta mention that, that's just part of the deal, right?

I remember seeing this for the first time and was like, wow, this is pretty awesome.

So yeah, let's see how this one holds up.

Synopsis is a Los Angeles detective and a psychic are stalked by a killer who's packed with the devil, has allowed him to return from the grave.

Yeah, that's kind of a nutshell synopsis, I guess.

Sounds like a formula we've heard before.

I don't know of any movie that's actually done this before this.

I mean, there's some movies from, you know, where you got some coming back from the dead, being a bad guy and stuff.

I mean, you know, Shocker, you had the horror show.

So we've kind of had this idea passed around.

But this one plays more like a crime drama than it does anything else.

Even though it's got elements that are, you know, it's pretty cool.

Let's see what the people have to say.

It is a 5.7 out of 10.

I don't know if I agree with that or not.

Let's see if there's a Y to watch.

My favorite part.

And you've got to be kidding me.

There's not a Y to watch for this movie.

I mean, we can almost just make one up, right?

Here we go.

Y to watch.

It's fantastic, thrilling and terrifying.

All at the same time.

The pacing is good.

Never a dull moment.

I highly recommend this movie.

Worthy of repeat viewings.

Yeah, I mean, I'm really surprised how well it holds up.

I guess because they didn't overdo the powers from Beyond the Grave, right?

We didn't get any crazy like, you know, the ending of Highlander where you've got some rotoscoping demons floating around and stuff like that.

It plays it pretty straight.

And I think that's what I like about it.

I was thinking to myself while watching this, you could take this movie and Exorcist 3 and put them back to back and have a pretty awesome night as far as movies that have a lot of similarities.

Both of them are pretty dark, but are really kind of shooting from the same hip.

And you already know I love Exorcist 3.

It's one of those movies that doesn't really get talked about enough.

And the big thing there is not only is it a great movie and you got Brad Driff in it, but it's sure to see Scott.

Come on.

So but what do we got here?

We got Lou Diamond Phillips.

Let's look at this cast real quick.

Lou is playing Russell Logan, who is known to be a detective that hunts down serial killers.

There just happens to be one loose in this town.

So that's that's kind of his role here, right?

We got McCady Williamson in this, who plays kind of his partner.

You know, you can imagine this is your job, the things that you're kind of dealing with when you're dealing with specifically serial killers.

How bleak of a job that could be.

So Jeff Cobras in this, who plays Patrick, who is our satanic killer, who's been in a bunch of stuff, always plays kind of the bad guy.

We've got Tracy Griffith in this, who's the psychic redheaded.

What's her name?

Tessa?

Is that right?

Tess, yeah.

And you know, that's kind of the strange twist here, right?

We'll talk about it as we go along.

Then we got Sue Gojian in this, who is our nun.

But we do have a cameo from Bill Mosley, he's probably not a cameo.

I mean, I don't know that Bill Mosley...

I guess at this point, Bill Mosley was known as being, you know, chop-chop and all that stuff.

But he plays a bartender, which is, you know, highly recommended in any kind of movie where you're hunting beyond the dead serial killers.

Rest of the cast is pretty straightforward.

Let's get into the movie, right?

So, starts off with this nun approaching the head of the church that she's at and saying, hey, there's ultimate evil going on.

I don't know if you guys can feel it, but I'm kind of feeling it.

And we got to do something.

And they're like, yeah, you know, that's maybe a little too far out there for us in this day and age.

So we're not gonna, you know, we're not gonna do anything.

Then it breaks away to, you know, some crime scenes where some people have been killed.

And of course, they're all being killed the same way.

And it looks like it's some sort of ritual.

So we're doing a manhunt with a large group.

And Lou Diamond Phillips kind of leading the group.

And of course, you know, it's funny again, because here's a guy that does this for a living.

He's obviously got this crew that does this.

He's done it many times.

But his bosses still gave him a hard time about it, right?

You know, are you going to let him get away this time?

I mean, it's just like, you know, come on, man.

I'm hunting serial killers.

I don't see you out here doing this, risking your life like this, you know?

So, anywho, that's just my venting on that situation.

But Lou Diamond Phillips is kind of the lone cop.

He sits home by himself.

He don't really have a woman.

And he keeps getting these phone calls.

He's looking at a newspaper, and he's marking all the spots where these murders are happening.

And he starts to realize something.

And then he gets a phone call from an anonymous caller, and they're saying, here's what's going on.

I know where he's going to strike next.

And just promise me one thing, no death penalty.

You know, you can't do that, right?

Of course you don't know why.

And he says, of course he agrees, because he's been tracking his person for a while.

So, you know, they set up a sting operation.

And on the newspaper, he starts marking all the places that have been hit and the one that's going to be hit.

And it obviously makes a pentagram, right?

So we're going the whole satanic route here.

And which is the insignia that he cars in all of his victims.

Again, very much like the Gemini Killer and The Exorcist 3.

So again, a lot of similarities here.

And a lot of things that happen in this are very much like that too, because in The Exorcist, our bad guy also can hop from body to body, right?

So yeah, they do a sting operation, gets a little squirrely, some things go wrong, some things go right.

They end up catching the guy.

And guess what?

He gets the death penalty.

They put him in the gas chamber and they put him away.

Only for him to return from the dead, because I guess when you make a pact with the devil, if you get the death sentence, then you get to come back?

I don't know how that really works.

I don't know what the difference is between are you supposed to just catch the guy and keep him in captivity till he dies, or are you supposed to kill him on the spot?

What makes it about the death sentence that allows the devil to say, okay, now you can come back?

Maybe it's because you're, again, I don't really know.

That's the only thing you're kind of going, okay, what makes that difference?

Maybe you just weren't supposed to kill the guy because he's like Obi-Wan Kenobi.

If you strike him down, he'll come back even stronger than you could possibly imagine, right?

So, and that's kind of what we're dealing with.

So now we got to, you know, and then all of a sudden, after they do the, they put him in the chair and they gas him, well, the murders keep happening.

So same way, matter of fact, he even goes back and gets the officer that they were using as kind of a plant, you know, to catch him, that he had, you know, tied down and ready to, you know, do the deed with her.

Not the deed, but, you know, do the sacrifice, I guess.

He ends up finding her and finishing the job, and that kind of makes Lou go, uh-oh, this ain't good.

And then a lady visits him at the police office, and it's our red-headed psychic that's like, I didn't told you before, you wasn't supposed to give him the death sentence, and now you've screwed up.

Because now he's got the first power.

Everybody's like, well, that's the first power.

Well, first off, that's the name of the movie.

But what that is, is the power to resurrect.

That's right.

But not only does he come back from the dead, he does this body-hopping thing, which makes it interesting, which is why I absolutely, again, love Exorcist III and also love The Hidden.

Because we can jump from body to body whenever one gets wore out or whatever.

You can utilize people's weaknesses and strengths to your advantage in that situation.

It's a cool idea.

And that's what we're dealing with here.

And so these two team up, and they keep it straightforward for quite a while.

And, you know, one minute he could be, you know, a bartender, the next minute he could be a bag lady out on the street who just happens to be floating outside your window on your seventh-floor apartment building.

That's what I like about this, is, you know, not only can you resurrect, not only can he body hop, but he's got some pretty extraordinary strengths, such as jumping off the top of a building and landing on his feet and take off running.

I mean, and when I'm talking about a building, I'm talking about, like, a huge, you know, 20-floor building or whatever, you know, floating outside your window, got some kind of super-strength things going on.

He can be there, not be there, kind of Michael Meyers-ish.

You know, a bad dude.

You're not just dealing with a normal lunatic, right?

You're dealing with somebody with all these superpowers.

So that's kind of what sets this apart, I guess you'd say.

Like I said, there's other movies that kind of play around, tinker with this idea as well.

I just don't know if they do it as well as this one.

When it all comes down to it, they end up also needing the help of a nun from the beginning of the movie that has a little more insight on how this has to be done, this is how you stop the evil.

And, you know, I like the majority of this.

You get this weird, you know, how they have to do in every movie like this where Lou Diamond Phillips or, you know, our hero has to end up kind of having an affectionate affair with the other person in the movie.

Didn't know if this was going to be a three-way or what, but he just kind of, he's got the hots for the redheaded girl.

He kisses her once, and then from there on, he's like protecting her like he's been with her for 25 years.

So it's just kind of a weird, again, that's that movie formula thing.

I get it, you know.

That's how you keep, you know, both sides of the crowd entertained, I guess.

But, you know, that's one of those things that's just always thrown in there, and that's fine.

I'm glad that it ended up being some big, major love scene in the movie.

When you're chasing somebody that's from beyond the grave and they're attacking you psychologically, physically, you might not be in the mood, I'm just saying.

That's what's always blown my mind about these movies where our hero is fighting all this stuff, but he's always got time to get in the sack.

And I'm going, are you crazy?

It's hard for me to focus on stuff like that, but when I go, man, I got a bill to pay tomorrow.

So anywho, that's one of those typical Hollywood things, and it's fine, it really is.

This is a solid movie, man.

I forgot how good it is.

I do remember my daughter when she was in her teens, whatever, discovering this movie, and she watched it quite a few times.

I think she was really intrigued by this whole concept.

And I remember her just really liking this movie, so I remember liking it when I first saw it.

So yeah, I think this is a good solid flick, and I think it holds up really well, because again, they didn't go too crazy with the effects where things are so outlandish that it just doesn't work.

The effects are there for the right reason, and they're done the right way.

I think the story is solid.

But yeah, it just feels like very familiar territory, especially for us horror fans that's seen everything under the sun.

But yeah, I don't know, man.

I think this is a good movie to rewatch and go back and appreciate how well this is actually put together.

So do yourself a favor and check it out.

It is on Tubi, as the majority of these shows are.

And let me know what you think about this.

I think this is a solid flick.

And if you're sticking around to hear talking about making your own peanut butter cookies, I just kind of said that on the way, I don't know anything about making peanut butter cookies.

If you have recipes you want to share with me, fine, do that.

Anywho, that's it for this episode.

Folks, I hope you have a good one, and we will check you later.