Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Impulse (1984)
Director: Graham Baker
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Smalltown USA. After a minor earth tremor, a farmer's wife tries to blow her brains out in the middle of an irrationally abusive phone call to her daughter. Armed with her doctor boyfriend, the girl returns home to see what drove momma mad, and finds people acting totally on impulse: elderly folk rob banks, barroom brawlers break their own fingers, and mischievous brats attempt to roast her alive. All too reminiscent, most notably of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the film wastes its predictable but promising premise and quickly degenerates into virtual absurdity. With the exception of its heroine (Tilly), the entire cast is transformed into an almost comic collection of screaming harridans and snarling gunmen, while the 'hints' at what lies behind the epidemic of aggression are delivered with sledgehammer subtlety. Aiming for a realistic ecological allegory, Baker simply stumbles from cliché to cliché.Author: GA
Cast & crew
Director: Graham Baker
Producer: Tim Zinnemann
Cast: Tim Matheson, Meg Tilly, Hume Cronyn, John Karlen, Bill Paxton, Amy Stryker full cast
Genre(s): Horror
Duration: 99 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Martin Provost discusses 'Séraphine'
Trevor Johnston talks to the director of 'Séraphine' about bringing a little known French painter back to life
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Stephen Poliakoff discusses 'Glorious 39'
Stephen Poliakoff’s ‘Glorious 39’ is his first film for cinema since ‘Food of Love’ in 1997. Dave Calhoun met him
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
Steven Soderbergh on 'The Informant!' and 'The Girlfriend Experience'
We talk to Steven Soderbergh about his two forthcoming films: one featuring a porn star, the other a chubby Matt Damon
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations












What do you think?
Post your review now