Couch, The

"Someone is going to be murdered at exactly 7:00," an unidentified caller informs the police. His voice is calm, measured, pleasant even. "I'm the murderer." It's 6:55. Five minutes later, a fatally stabbed man keels over on a city sidewalk. Grant Williams, who helped define '50s sci-fi as the luckless protagonist of The Incredible Shrinking Man, ventures into the thriller genre as an ice pick-wielding glamour boy with a sordid past, a blood-splattered present and a psychiatrist who really bugs him. Based on a story co-written by Blake Edwards, The Couch probes a deeply disturbed mind -- and plunges the audience into a nerve-jolting odyssey that ends with the killer, masked and gowned, ready to operate in a hospital surgical theater.

• horror
• science fiction