MICHAEL APTED

Bil’s rating (out of 5):  BBBB

USA, 1994.  New Line Cinema.  Screenplay by Dana Stevens.  Cinematography by Dante Spinotti.  Produced by David Blocker.  Music by Brad Fiedel.  Production Design by Dan Bishop.  Costume Design by Susan Lyall.  Film Editing by Rick Shaine.  

Madeleine Stowe gives one of her best performances in this terrifying thriller, as a blind violinist who has just undergone surgery to restore her eyesight.  It will be a long time before she can adjust to all the new light in her life (literally), and she finds herself more helpless than she was before the operation.

Her brain is having difficulty processing images immediately and objects often appear in focus later than when she sees them, sometimes up to a day after the fact. One night she intercepts a stranger walking out of her apartment building, and only afterwards realizes she saw the man who murdered her upstairs neighbour.

Now, her challenged senses must help a bitter cop (Aidan Quinn) stop a serial killer before he comes for her next.  This is an excellent thriller that is really very scary.