Hi guys,
Long time reader, first time writer. When I was a kid, my friend would have sleepovers and rent horror movies that haunt me to this very day. The one I am seeking today may have been double-billed with BEYOND THE DOOR II, a movie that made me sleep with clenched fists for years afterward – the thought of waking up with a crumbling hand in mine was so terrifying.
The movie I am looking for was watched on video sometime between 1983 and 1989. It featured a man who had obtained an amulet that allowed him to psychically act outside of his body as he slept. I think he received the amulet from a man in prison. I remember two crimes that he committed. He caused a big crate or a piano to fall on someone by snapping the rope it was swinging on. He also scalded a woman in a shower by increasing the water temperature and seizing the glass door closed. She ultimately breaks through the glass door and is covered in cuts – I can't remember if she lives. In the end, he is captured as he sleeps and incinerated – he wakes up as he burns.
One final question, where the hell were my parents when I needed them?
— Craig's Friend Meg
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to readers Leoben & halekotsi for solving it with PSYCHIC KILLER!
This is just a guess but this description made me think of "The Power" from 1984.
The problem is that It was a doll and not an amulet that gave the guy his power so I guess that can't be it.
Anyway the trailer is boss!
Hi, newbie here, but lo & behold, I know this one: Psychic Killer (1975), directed by sometime-actor Ray Danton and starring a bottomed-out Jim Hutton (a few years after playing Kim Darby's irritable non-believer hubby in Don't Be Afraid of the Dark). Sleazy flick, fun in its way but kinda nasty too. The shower scalding scene is thick with trauma. Enjoy revisiting it, though not sure it's widely available.
This definitely sounds like "Psychic Killer" (1975).
http://www.blackhorrormovies.com/psychickiller.htm
What!?! No Amulet?!? That's the movie though!
Wow, in spite of my error, you did it! Thanks Kindertrauma!
Whoops, I spoke to soon. I watched the trailer first, then I followed the link. There was an amulet! Now I've fully relived my horrible, horrible past.
Man that movie was crap. I think it was shelved, and then released to video ages later with very misleading artwork, shades of Corman's "Screamers" (anyone else have nightmares about the poster for that one?). When my ma and I watched "P.K." she was like: "That's not the Jim Hutton I knew as a girl."
The movie you know as "Beyond the Door II" is in actuality, Mario Bava's "Shock", and yes, it is very scary!!