The Fury (1978)

This Kirk Douglas flick is a little later than most of the movies I'd planned to write about here, but it's still +40 years old, so I'll wedge it in. It's a thriller that turns into a horror movie at the end (spoiler). 60-year-old Douglas looked pretty good in this one. No wonder he lived to 103! One scene late in its 125-minute running time rips off a lot from Carrie (1976). Why was everyone in the 1970s so scared of psychic powers? I guess one character explains it: "What a culture can't assimilate, it destroys." Oh, I get why it was so creepy: Brian De Palma directed, and he had directed Carrie two years earlier. John Williams of Star Wars orchestral fame provides perfectly moody and almost never intrusive music for this suspense drama.

Fun trivia: Darryl Hannah's first speaking part in a movie, playing a classmate of Gillian (Amy Irving). Hannah was playing 17 at 17; Irving was 24 playing 17!