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Blistering performances.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Blistering performances.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Lou Diamond Phillips stars in this supernatural horror / action hybrid as Russell Logan, a young LAPD detective who's good at catching serial killers. Thanks to a hot tip from psychic Tess Seaton (Tracy Griffith, the half-sister of Melanie G.), his latest arrest turns out to be Patrick Channing (Jeff Kober), the so-called "Pentagram Killer". You guessed it: the gas chamber eliminates Channings' body, but now his spirit is free to inhabit the bodies of various unlucky people. Channing then sets about taunting and mocking Logan while continuing to commit murder. Logan teams up with Seaton, and eventually, a headstrong young nun named Sister Marguerite (Elizabeth Arlen), to take on Channing."Weak" would be the right word to describe this effort by writer & director Robert Resnikoff. Anybody who'd seen "The Hidden" and even Wes Cravens' "Shocker" before seeing this would have gotten a serious case of deja vu. While his movie remains basically watchable, Resnikoff fails to bring very much that's interesting or fresh to this familiar old plot. There are fun plot details here and there: a wicked combination crucifix / dagger obtained by Marguerite, and the sight of Channing grabbing a ceiling fan and using it as a weapon. Resnikoff deals largely in cliché, especially when it comes to Logans' partner Oliver Franklin (Mykelti Williamson). That said, it's still a hoot when we come to learn of Channings' parentage. The music score by Stewart Copeland of The Police is good but unexceptional.Some of the cast make this worth sticking with. Phillips isn't too convincing as a tough cop, but he at least fares better than the sexy Griffith, who really isn't much of an actress. Williamson and Arlen are good. Dennis Lipscomb and Carmen Argenziano co-star; in small roles you can see the likes of David Gale, Brian Libby, Grand L. Bush, David Katims, Scott Lawrence, Bill Moseley, and Melanie Shatner. Best of all is Kober, an actor often cast as creepy villains, and he's reasonably fun, although his dialogue is frequently lame.Not much to recommend here. The ending is particularly bad.Five out of 10.

Fascinating thriller with a demonic villain chasing after Lou Diamond Phillips as Detective Russell Logan. Logan thinks he has solved another serial killing spree when he watches the execution of Patrick Channing (Jeff Kober). What he doesn't know is that Channing has the power of resurrection.Logan is assisted by a psychic Tess (Tracy Griffith) in his search for the resurrected killer, and eventually by a nun (Elizabeth Arlen), who provided some holy dagger to kill the demon.It was interesting as the demon can float from body to body, and when it occupied the nun, Logan has to fight her.You know who's going to win the final battle - or do you?Lots of chase scenes, both on foot and in vehicles added to the excitement.

People tried to make me believe that the premise of this rubbishy supernatural horror/thriller was inspired by the actual last words spoken by an authentic serial killer (whose name escapes me at the moment). Whilst awaiting his execution in the electric chair, he claimed that his soul would return to life and continue to go on a never-ending murder spree. It's not a highly original idea to revolve a horror film on, by the way. Other low-budget turkeys implemented the exact same basic premise, like "House 3", "Shocker" and "Ghost in the Machine". Anyway, "The First Power" (a.k.a "Pentagram") isn't a completely terrible effort, but the script overly reverts to clichés and lacks genuine thrills. The film starts off as an okay, albeit mundane serial killer flick in which obsessive cop-hero Lou Diamond Philips pursues a maniac who carves bloody pentagrams into the chests of his victims. He receives unexpected help from a spiritual medium, played by the gorgeous and underrated Tracy Griffith. She leads him to the killer but also begs not to execute him, as that would result in an even bigger catastrophe! Thanks to Tess' helpful hints, Detective Logan quickly captures the killer and celebrates his death penalty, but Patrick Channing made a pact with Satan Himself and returns to the rotten streets of California to do some more killing. "The First Power" gets pretty bad once the murderer reincarnates as a vengeful spirit. Instead of using his newly gained satanic powers to wipe out the entire world (that's what I would do in his position), Channing simply prefers to play cat and mouse games with his nemesis the copper. He annoyingly calls him "Buddy-Boy" all the time and possesses the bodies of Logan's friends and colleagues in order to trick him. Even though never really boring or poorly realized, it's a very weak film to endure, mostly because you constantly get the feeling of déjà-vu. Writer/director Robert Resnikoff shamelessly uses every dreadful cliché (the killer got sexually abused as a child) and even the players' lines can easily be predicted. As soon as Griffith explains she's able to predict the future, you just know that, somewhere at some point in the film, she's going to say the ridiculously overused line "I tell people who to live their lives, but my own life is a mess". Yawn. Lou Diamond Philips' performance is adequate enough, but it's rather difficult to take that youthful rebel of "La Bamba" and "Stand And Deliver" serious as a tough copper. There also are decent supportive roles for Mykelti Williamson ("Forrest Gump"), Carmen Argenziano ("When a Stranger Calls") and B-movie horror legend David Gale ("Re-Animator") appears in a minuscule cameo at the very beginning of the film.

What this movie fails to explain more than anything else is why this killer, who is oh-so-powerful and immortal and has even Satan on his side would waste so much of his time taunting this relatively unimportant cop instead of quickly killing him off and moving on to more "productive" activities. His silly pranks (the karate expert "bag lady" asking for "a kiss") often turn this supposed horror film into a comedy. The director plays arbitrarily with the genre's cheapest clichés and shocks (dream/illusion/reality flips, cat jumps, sudden appearances/disappearances), but the film simply isn't scary. One good scene: the jump off the roof. And one good line: "so the most likely victims are alcoholics and junkies? Great, that narrows it down to half of L.A!" (**)