The Horror! The Horror! The Medusa Touch is just horrifying! Except that it’s just not.

There was a time when I didn’t like horror at all. I thought it was a waste of my movie-watching energy. Then I met my wonderful husband, and many of my opinions changed. The problem, though, is that whereas pre-Mike, I expected little to nothing out of even a classic horror film, he has honed my horror-viddying skills, and now I expect a lot from this category.

This is highly problematic with horror because every year, horror writers and directors up the ante, meaning that what was truly disturbing last year might be merely troubling this year. So, then, how can a horror flick stand the test of time? This is where the shock and creepiness factors come in.

The shock factor could more appropriately be referred to as originality. For example, Rosemary’s Baby has been done. The same idea in a new film could not be shocking anymore. No matter how much gore and scary music and twenty-first century updating you add to it, it’s already been done, and the reason why it holds up, the reason why it’s still scary is because of the originality of its premise. The Medusa Touch also has elements of shock and originality, too, mostly in the basic subject matter of the film, as opposed to any filmic devices that it could have employed.

While the creepiness factor plays in a bit with Rosemary’s Baby, this is where The Medusa Touch really shines. This is mostly achieved through the implementation of the creepy kid. High creepiness levels in children are probably the most effective way to add creepiness to your horror flick. As a child, John Morlar discovers his creepy ability to wish disasters into reality. Apparently, even as a child, his eyes and his gaze are creepy enough to freeze his enemies, hence the Medusa theme in the film. The creepy child element really carries The Medusa Touch and made it interesting for me. The older Burton’s character grows, the less exciting his telekinetic powers seem, the less evil his actions feel, even as the disasters he causes swell in scale.

But I also liked the psychological weariness that Burton’s character experiences, the wish for death or at least respite from his evil gift. So I’m not sure that I would have enjoyed the movie more if its timeline had been confined to John Morlar’s childhood exploits. All of the smallish problems I had with The Medusa Touch immediately after viewing have faded as I’ve considered it for the past couple of days. I can’t think of how to make it better. So while it may not be “horrifying” in the exact way I tend to think of horror—in a more truly scary, contemporary way, I suppose—it seems right for its time and its overall style, and I would guess that it would improve with repeat viewings.