• Wide Release
• Director: George Mihalka
• Written by: Robert Geoffrion
• Running Time: 85 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: R - Restricted
• Cast: Winston Rekert, Karen Black, John Novak, Patty Talbot, Vlasta Vrana, Andrew Bednarski, Bronwen Booth, Tom Rack, Joanne Côté, Philip Spensley, Ron Lea, Len Watt, Michael Sinelnikoff, Lois Maxwell, Anthony Sherwood, Walter Massey, Dean Hagopian, Adriana Roach, Arthur Grosser, Lois Dellar, Rob Roy, Roland Nincheri, Roger Garand

Reeling from a poorly received documentary, a Montreal based film director, Paul Sharpe (Winston Rekert), sees his chances of acquiring critical and financial success as an auteur slipping away. Creatively despondent and in debt, Sharpe has taken to shooting diaper and home appliance commercials in order to pay his bills. At home, it’s not much better. His wife is a painter and an unpleasant odour taints everything in the house, including the food she cooks. Paul likens it to being “poisoned”. His son has been suffering from a form of insomnia, waking in the middle of the night to play in the basement where his imaginary friend, “The Blue Man”, likes to hang out.

Introduced to the real-life phenomenon known as Astral projection (the act of spiritually transcending the sleeping physical body) while filming his documentary, Paul is further spurned into experimenting with it after meeting a seductive but eccentric dancer named Janus (Karen Black) at a party. She sells Sharpe on the spiritual benefits of projecting and even guides him as he begins to probe it more in depth. When the film opens, Paul is in the middle of one of these projections and it’s awesome, hovering ghost like from room to room and then out of his home and over a sprawling city as it sleeps – the sequence is shot as a fluid movement from up high and entirely from Paul’s disembodied perspective. Eventually he happens upon a farm and man and his dog, both of which react accordingly; the man is terrified while the dog barks in a protective prose. The whole sequence is unsettling and when Paul’s child nudges him from his sleep, it’s understandable that he is a little dazed at what had just transpired.

Upset, Paul visits Dr. Meister, Tom Rack (1990’s “Cursed"), a sceptical sort of therapist, who believes that Paul’s most recent bizarre Astral trip is nothing more than a bad dream brought on from his creative discontentment. When Meister brings up Janus, Sharpe recoils and storms out of the office in a huff. Later that day, Paul and his family travel to his father-in-law’s farm where he is abruptly attacked by the dog – the same dog he saw in his projection. Of course, the man in the projection was none other than Paul’s father-in-law, Bill Pearson. Where’s this leading you ask? Well, later, Bill relates to a friend that he saw his son-in-law appear to him the night before in the form of a blue hovering ghost. Yes, apparently the projection from the night before happened, his father-in-law saw him and Paul can’t understand why or how. Playing out like Paul’s earlier projection, the good doctor Meister is set upon later that night by an unseen force that, apparently, attacks him from the inside out. Sharpe’s father-in-law also dies in a similar fashion a few days later in an effectively creepy sequence. With two dead, the reality that Paul might be killing people during his Astral jaunts becomes painfully obvious. Paul is hard-pressed to figure out how, though. And how can he fight something he can’t control? Understandably, Paul grows increasingly more frightened for his own welfare and the welfare of his family. That fear is only heightened when his child’s drawing of his imaginary friend is that of a shadowy ‘blue man’.

Moving away from the standard supernatural horror elements that conjured up the first half, “The Blue Man” slowly takes the shape of a skittish detective drama as a young inspector named Kaufman (John Novak) is introduced into the film to piece together the various plot gimmicks in much the same way the audience does – slowly. Both Bill and Meister’s bodies look like as though they have “imploded” as the coroner states, and the single link between them is Paul. During his investigation, Kaufman happens upon the supernatural documentary Paul made and soon things begin to make sense, all while getting even more bizarre. In the film, Sharpe interviews an elderly couple, William and Monica Duval, who, as we learn, died sometime after Paul’s chat with them. This sequence is chilling as the pair nonchalantly describes their manipulation of Astral projection in their eternal search for human bodies, “hosts”, which will allow them to escape their spiritual reality and remain on Earth decade after decade, lifetime after lifetime. Paul likens them to “psychic vampires”, selfishly ruining people’s lives in order to further their own physical and Earthly wants.

As things begin to unravel, the detective discovers another link; the strange woman, Janus, whom re-introduced Paul to the notion of projecting. Played with a chilling intensity by Karen Black (2003's "Curse of the Forty-Niner"), her scenes sparkle with the kind of ominous sexiness b-movie fans have come to expect this cinematic chameleon. From the way she slyly manipulates Paul to the way she sexually toys with the detective, it’s pretty easy to decipher that she’s hiding something and may have more to do with the murders than she’s letting on. More people in Paul’s life continue to die while the detective gets hip to the reality of the situation, eventually building to a stirring climax and a cool twist ending that surely lives up to it’s Australian release title “Eternal Evil”.

Clearly inspired by Tony Scott’s stylish vampire thriller “The Hunger”, released two years earlier, “The Blue Man” is a Canadian production that remains vaguely unique simply because it’s one of the only films to deal seriously with the phenomenon known as Astral projection. Some will note that director George Mihalka failed to truly exploit the creative and fanciful implications of Astral dynamics, choosing instead to use the phenomenon as a jumping off point for a run-of-the-mill psychic slasher film. Regardless, I’m sure the film will probably open up folks to the reality of Astral and Etheric projection. I know that I was inspired to at least look it up.

Winston Rekert (1981's "Your Ticket Is No Longer Valid"), in the title role of Paul Sharpe, is quite good. Right off the bat we get a sense of his indifference; ho-humming his way through his job and his life. Ripe with apathy towards both his career and his family, this is a guy who just doesn’t care all that much, which may explain why his documentary failed to become a success. As his friends and associates slowly begin to die, it’s interesting charting his emotional decline as he begins to look at things with a newly acquired sense of importance… and disparity. When he shows up at Janus’ apartment at film’s end, loaded gun in hand, the audience has no doubt that at least one bullet in that chamber is meant for himself. Also good is long time character actor John Novak (2000's "Phantom of the Megaplex") playing the dogged detective, Kaufman. He represents the audience; at first suspecting Paul in the murders before piecing things together and eventually realizing that Paul is the real victim. Novak’s transition from accuser to sympathetic observer is gradual and believable because the audience is sharing in his sudden awareness.

Many will find fault with various aspects of the film and for sure, its pacing is slow at times but with its interesting subject matter, some chilling music, darkly lit creepy interiors and some good acting, the film is a fun and sometimes frightening diversion.