The Kirlian Witness

When a woman claiming to possess an unearthly connection to plant-life dies mysteriously, her sister, compelled to put to rest unanswered questions in the matter, begins an investigation of plant/human communication phenomena. Her shocking conclusion is that her sister's beloved houseplants are not only cogent key-witnesses to a murder, but they may also be attempting to warn her that she is in similar danger.

Despite some pardonable issues with seesaw pacing, this refreshingly original indie thiller intrigues with its open-minded and ineffably eccentric concept. Honorable performances and a nail-biting windup make this low-budget effort a most enjoyable surprise...possibly not so easy to attain, but worth tracking down.

6/10

Sort of a murder mystery with a weird thread running through it all - "plant communication," "kirlian photography," and to a much lesser degree: auras, meditation, "pyramid power" etc. The musical score is good, the acting decent, the story OK. This could have been more interesting and engaging, and is the sort of movie which could perhaps benefit from a remake.

Oh - and there's nothing involving dogs, spatulas, or warnings against going in the water, as another user wrote - perhaps he was thinking of another movie.

The movie revolves around two sisters: One is a photographer who is married to an architect and lives a relatively normal life, and the other is a houseplant-obsessed, socially awkward isolationist who lives below her sister in a Soho loft and runs a slipshod plant shop. The weird one (well acted, by the way, as are all the parts) dies within the first 20 minutes of the film, and the rest of the movie revolves around her grieving sister trying to figure out how she died--accidentally or not? And if not, who did it?

Although the production year on this flick is 1979, the film feels as though it was made 10 years earlier and is a quintessential product of that occult-obsessed era. As such, the alternative sleuthing tactics used by the sister-cum-detective involves colorful Kirlian photography of auras (the auras of both plants and people) to determine who has ill intent and who knows what. The twist? Her architect-husband might be the murderer (or not) AND one special plant may have seen everything happen! What is that plant trying to say?!!

The feel of the film is serious and decidedly (and purposefully) muted -- the tone, the acting, the music, the photography. You might call it slow, but someone with the right sensibilities might instead call it "creepy." Indeed, the film strikes many of the same chords as horror films of the time period--we're talking about that atmosphere of hopeless Gothic dread and awful, depressing inevitability that drenches cult horror flicks like "Let's Scare Jessica to Death," "The Pyx," or "The Haunting of Julia" (largely created by the music and sometimes-abstract camera angles here in this film). But unfortunately these emotive moments are far and few between. Most importantly, it should be noted that this really is NOT a horror film at all. Although it has some occult overtones and that atmospheric feeling of dread, the story is a who-done-it mystery.

For someone who can plug into the film from this "atmospheric 1970s horror movie" angle (even though, as mentioned, you'd be hard pressed to call this a horror yarn!), "The Kirlian Witness" might be considered a rare gem--not a stellar flick, but a minor gem nonetheless. I got my copy on Amazon (in 2012), where it is currently available as an "on-demand" DVD-R with full color artwork in the DVD case and also on the disc itself. (For some reason, I half-think it is actually the director who is selling them himself, but this is pure speculation.) The transfer is workable, but as the fuzzy print testifies, this has in no way been remastered. In fact, I'd actually love to see a very clean copy of the film, but considering its relative obscurity, I seriously doubt that will ever happen.

The deadeningly slow pace is what ruins this picture. A woman whose sister was murdered uses kirlian photography to try and solve the crime. An interesting idea but a livelier script was needed. Lawrence Tierney has a brief cameo.

The world of horror/occult cinema is a wonderfully unpredictable place. I have been a horror fanatic for almost my entire life and I daresay that I have seen practically everything. I saw cannibal tribes devouring innocent people, serial killers painfully tormenting their agonizing victims and even I even watched babies getting impaled on spikes. None of these sights ever shocked or frightened me, though, but the simple alternate title and poster image of this obscure & low-budgeted thriller, I find strangely unnerving and eerie. "The Plants are Watching", and then the image of a tipped over plant next to the lifeless hand of a woman. You must admit that is somewhat uncanny, no? Well, I certainly think so.

"The Kirlian Witness", which is the official title, also brings forward some very original and intriguing themes but - unfortunately - it's too much of a poorly produced and amateurish effort to be entertaining. With better production values and slightly more competent cast & crew members, I'm sure this could have been a modest cult gem, but now it's destined to remain an obscure oddity for avid collectors. The idea of communicating with plants, and even depend on them as witnesses of vile crimes like murder, may sound foolish but actually it's quite compelling and suspenseful (given that the screenplay is better elaborated than here). Laurie is an introvert girl, obsessed with botanical flora and persuaded it's possible to telepathically communicate with plants. She's found murdered on the rooftop of her apartment complex one day, and since writer/director Jonathan Sarno could only afford Lawrence Tierney one single day for a cameo appearance as the Police Detective, it's up to Laurie's sister Rilla to identify the killer herself. Since there are only two main suspects, and one of them obviously did not do it, the script isn't exactly compelling or exciting. In fact, "The Kirlian Witness" is a painfully tedious film that only exists of lame conversations between 3 terrible actors and an endless amount of shots of Sansevierias hooked onto seismograph devices. There's one moment of spectacle, when someone makes a nasty fall down an elevator shaft, but that's also over in the blink of an eye. I'm giving it a generous rating 4/10, because I still very much like the main idea and because of the little shiver the title gave me, but it sadly can't be recommended.