SUPERSTITION

Still another hypnotic paranormal thriller from the Great Ambrose (Mother of God, 1996; The Man Who Turned Into Himself, 1994, etc.) that, once again, will drag you unfailingly into the small hours. No movie or book can be taken as evidential proof that a world of spirit exists parallel with ours. But paranormal investigators press on, peering into the invisible. In imitation of a real-life famous experiment conducted 20 years ago, when parapsychologists in Toronto claimed they—d invented a ghost named Philip, a team of Manhattanites decides here to invent its own ghost, or thought-form, by pooling their mental energies and focusing them on a fictitious English-speaking character named Adam Wyatt, whose life they write, placing it in the well-researched period of the French Revolution. As psychologist Sam Towne and his group of six volunteers (including a magazine reporter) go on meeting, they become so familiar with Adam that when he actually begins table-rapping, as presumably did Philip, they—re naturally elated and begin asking him all sorts of questions. Many he can’t answer because they can’t answer the questions: He knows only what they know, being made of their thoughts. But, as it happens, he’s also made of their darker natures, and the time comes when Adam himself begins to create an alien universe parallel with their own and starts sucking them into it by leading them to their deaths. As always, Ambrose misleads us toward one climax, only to substitute a hugely inventive, jaw-dropping, bittersweet alternate climax. Featuring a cast of warmly attractive adult characters and no human villain in sight, the latest from Ambrose has been sold to Tri-Star films for one million. If the film sticks to Ambrose’s terrific ending, instead of going soft like Ghost, this could make one of the scariest, brainiest, most memorable love stories ever made about the unseen. (Film rights to Interscope/ Columbia/Tri-Star)