Some films are so tense you grip the armrest. The Clairvoyant is so sluggish you might grip the remote in case you need to fast-forward… again… and again. This is a movie about a clairvoyant artist, a handcuff-happy killer, and a TV host with more hair product than moral fiber—and somehow it manages to drain every ounce of suspense out of its own premise.
A Killer With a Kink for Restraints… and the Audience’s Patience
Our story kicks off with a body floating in the Hudson River—nude, handcuffed, and, unfortunately, still more dynamic than most of the cast. The “Handcuff Killer” promptly racks up more victims, all dispatched in ways that feel like they were choreographed by someone whose only exposure to suspense was an episode of Columbo they fell asleep during.
Into the fray come TV host Paul “Mac” McCormack (Perry King) and Detective Larry Weeks (Norman Parker), who team up to track the killer. By “team up,” I mean they occasionally share screen time between awkward romantic advances toward Virna Nightbourne (Elizabeth Kemp), the clairvoyant artist whose pre-murder doodles are the plot’s big hook.
The Psychic Element: Not So Much Sixth Sense as Sketchy Guesswork
Virna draws crime scenes before they happen, though you’d be forgiven for thinking she’s just running a side hustle in bad pulp-novel cover art. The film tries to present her abilities as mysterious and unsettling, but every “vision” looks like something you could get from staring too long at the carpet pattern in a Holiday Inn.
Her psychic flashbacks build to the Big Reveal, but the journey there is a slog—an oddly bloodless, plodding procedural padded out with too many scenes of people talking in dimly lit rooms like they’re killing time before the real movie shows up.
Our “Hero”: The Smarm Before the Storm
Perry King plays Mac with the kind of smug charm that makes you want to check your wallet after every scene. This isn’t accidental—Mac turns out to be the killer—but King telegraphs the twist so hard that by his second scene you’re mentally placing bets on how he’ll get caught. His eventual unmasking involves a rooftop scuffle, but it’s less Hitchcock and more “two guys at a barbecue fighting over the last beer.”
Murder Methods: Creative in Theory, Goofy in Execution
Handcuffing someone in an elevator shaft? That’s clever—on paper. On screen, it’s edited so clumsily you half expect to see the boom mic operator wandering into frame. The same goes for the drowning sequence, which plays less like a tense set piece and more like a PSA about why you shouldn’t drive with your feet tied together.
Tone Trouble: Neither Scary Nor Sleazy Enough
For a film that dips into S&M clubs, group sex flashbacks, and serial murder, The Clairvoyant is shockingly timid. It wants the grit of an urban thriller, the psychic weirdness of The Eyes of Laura Mars, and the body count of a slasher, but it ends up with the emotional impact of a middling episode of Murder, She Wrote—minus Jessica Fletcher to make it fun.
Even the so-called “video nasty” label in the UK feels laughable in retrospect. If this was considered dangerous, then MacGyver should have been banned for showing how to make explosives out of chewing gum and a paperclip.
Supporting Cast: Blink and You’ll Miss the Energy
Norman Parker’s Larry is supposed to be a cop and an aspiring stand-up comic, but his punchlines land with the grace of a dropped safe. Elizabeth Kemp does her best with Virna, but the script gives her little to do except look concerned while holding a pencil. And Joe Morton—who can elevate almost anything—pops in briefly as a detective, only to disappear like the budget for decent lighting.
The Big Twist: Oh, That Guy? Yeah, We Kinda Guessed
When Virna finally has her vision of Elizabeth’s death, the film plays it as a shocking revelation: Mac was involved! Except… the film has been dropping anvils on that point since the 40-minute mark. The rooftop finale is supposed to be tense, but by then you’re mostly rooting for gravity to speed things along.
Final Verdict: A Thriller That’s All Filler
The Clairvoyant had a juicy premise—a psychic artist whose visions could help catch a killer—and smothered it under flat performances, pacing issues, and murder scenes that feel like they were rehearsed over lunch. It’s too tame for exploitation fans, too slow for thriller fans, and too obvious for mystery fans.
If clairvoyance were real, someone on the crew should have seen this mess coming and “accidentally” lost the reels in the Hudson River.
