[If] I were tempted to turn off my mind, it would be for something like Brian DePalma's latest exercise in torrential terror. By the end of The Fury, the bloody, extra-sensory carnage seems a bit much, but I must confess that the film as a whole tended to absorb me into its wild fancies. I was entertained. The movie was fun. Still, the spoilsport critic within this fun-loving fool is not entirely sure that The Fury deserves a clean bill of health as a coherent piece of work.

To the adolescent aggressiveness of Carrie, DePalma and his novelist-scenarist John Farris have added the political paranoia of the post-Watergate era in which the CIA can be accused of virtually anything.

DePalma and Farris have more than one surprise in store for us before the ultimate bloodbath. At first glance, the director seems shameless in filching Hitchcock's wrist-clutching climaxes from...