Goth Girls' Detective Club

Charlene ‘Charlie’ McGee (Drew Barrymore) Firestarter (1984) Under different circumstances the McGees probably would have taken over the world. Unfortunately their particular circumstances were not inclined toward that possibility and were instead inclined more in the direction of their suitability as lab rats. Charlene ‘Charlie’ McGee is a young girl whose tiny wee little body potentially possesses a myriad of psychic abilities, the most blatant, or most developed, being pyrokinesis. It seems poor little Charlie inherited these abilities from her parents after they, some might say foolishly, participated in a clandestine government sponsored experiment whilst in college whereby they allowed themselves to be injected with an undisclosed drug known as ‘Lot Six’ which apparently had the capacity to alter chromosomes and pituitary glands. Although her parents developed some powers following the ‘Lot Six’ debacle really they were quite embarrassing and probably best not mentioned ...

Andrew ‘Andy’ McGee (David Keith) Firestarter (1984) Andrew McGee and the soon to be Mrs. McGee, Victoria (Heather Locklear, sporting the kind of eighties hair one usually only witnesses in dreams), saw fit to participate in a secret government experiment whilst in college where they consented to be shot up with unknown quantities of an unknown drug referred to as merely ‘Lot Six’. Now, frankly, this sounds like a bloody stupid thing to do, but those crazy sixties kids didn’t seem to think so and consequently the elder McGees scored themselves nice little powers, most notably Andy McGees acquired brand of mind control, a kind of telepathic hypnosis that he refers to as the ‘push’ an ability which seems to allow him implant strong suggestions into people’s mind thereby allowing him to bend them to his will. While you might think that this would be a super awesome power to have and your naughty minds might run away with the untold possibilities it could offer you, it turns out that...

Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) The Dead Zone (1983) Things are looking good for school teacher Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) he’s got a good job, he’s in love with his work colleague Sarah Bracknell (Brooke Adams) and better than that she loves him too, everything’s dandy until he is involved in a serious car accident and he ends up in a coma. Bloody typical, all’s going well for you, you meet the woman of your dreams, life’s good and then you’re hit by a truck and end up comatose. On the up side, during his bloody long and unwarranted timeout, Johnny is placed under the care of neurologist Dr. Sam Weizak (Herbert Lom) and when he finally wakes he thinks, all things considered, he’s’ come out of it pretty darn well, all his limbs are present and correct, nothing’s broken, brain functions seem good and he’s still got his preternaturally pretty Christopher Walken looks, everything’s coming up Johnny. Unfortunately this all takes a sharp incline towards rubbish when he discove...

John Morlar (Richard Burton) The Medusa Touch (1978) French detective, Brunel (Lino Ventura), is participating in an exchange programme in London when he is charged with investigating the murder of obnoxious novelist John Morlar (God only knows what’s going on in France for some unsuspecting Brit copper, probably some paperwork and sightseeing. Can’t help but think someone got the rubbish end of the stick here somewhere along this line). While conducting an initial investigation of the crime scene, somewhat surprisingly for all concerned, it becomes apparent that Morlar is still alive; despite the horrific injuries he has incurred and wisely he is rushed to hospital. Brunel then sets about to investigate the not murder of Morlar primarily by attempting to reconstruct his life with the aid of journals and the man’s psychiatrist, Dr. Zonfeld (Lee Remick). These prove to be incredibly rich resources and soon we see the life of the mysterious Morlar taking shape through the versati...

Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) Carrie (1976) Poor Carrie White never stood a chance; adolescence, burgeoning metaphorical telekinetic powers, a raving psychotic, religious fanatic mother and a school full of unmitigated gits. Carrie demonstrates clearly why teenagers suck and why school days, far from being the happiest days of your life, are in fact more often than not merely a gamut of self revulsion, humiliation and shame. Or so I’m told, my school days were relatively bland and non-descript except for a brief period of excitement whereby I impersonated a prefect for a month. And we didn’t have proms in Britain in those days so I never had to worry about not being able to get a date, which was entirely more healthy, if you ask me. Carrie White is the quintessential underdog; emotionally crippled by her mother, mercilessly terrorised by her peers and completely unprepared to negotiate the harsh realities of her own existence. But, she ultimately becomes one the scariest and most ...

Madame Arcati (Margaret Rutherford) Blithe Spirit (1945) Madame Aracati, played by incomparable Margaret Rutherford, is undoubtedly my favourite movie psychic. I’ve always had a deep admiration for Rutherford herself as she was unquestionably a highly talented comedy performer, but more than that I always appreciated the sense of the peculiar and eccentric she always embodied that combined with the unapologetic and extraordinary uniqueness of her physicality set her apart in my young mind and made me glad to be unusual too. Blithe Spirit revolves around a successful writer Charles Condomine (Rex Harrison), who wishes to research the occult for his next novel and so arranges for an eccentric medium, Madame Arcati, to conduct a séance at his home. Faced with Madame Arcati’s spiritual theatrics and comedically clichéd rituals, Charles, his second wife Ruth (Constance Cummings) and guests the Bradmans (Hugh Wakefield, Joyce) Carey: endeavor, with varying degrees of success, to supp...

The Rose Red Six Rose Red (2002) If you have even the vaguest intention of committing 6 hours of your life to Stephen King’s mini-series Rose Red don’t peek below as I’m just about to ruin it for everyone. Maybe just look at the pictures. A renegade team of multi-disciplined psychics and their maverick captain, the decidedly unbalanced university prof, Dr. Joyce Reardon, embark upon a somewhat foolhardy investigation of the reputedly super haunted mansion Rose Red. Displaying a blatant disregard for publicly reported evidence stating that in excess of 23 people have vanished and/or died within Rose Red’s walls, our crack team presses on with their noble mission to irrefutably prove the existence of ghosts and like. What they don’t count on, however, is that Rose Red is a devious little madam with the apparent ability to significantly increase her size and architectural arrangement at will. Unsurprisingly, death and misadventure ensue. Name: Annie Wheaton (Kimberly J. Brown) ...

Mr. Meek (Reginald Beckwith) Night of the Demon (1957) In the 1957 film Night of the Demon (not to be confused with 1988’s Night of the Demons which is entirely different kettle of craziness), Dana Andrews manages to get himself embroiled in an evil game of pass the parcel with a jolly charming occultist called Julian. (It’s scarier than it sounds, honest). As the film develops, our sceptic Dana’s situation progressively worsens and there’s some unpleasantness involving Foggy from Last of the Summer Wine , occultist Julian’s delightfully batty mother arranges a séance with equally delightfully batty Mr. Meeks and a celluloid psychic legend is born. It is Mr. Meek's enviable psychic arsenal and sheer medium range that set him apart from the young pretenders so let us sit for a moment at the feet of the master and  take a peek at his hefty arsenal. Stop giggling at the back . In order to achieve the trance like state popular media/fiction reliably informs us is n...

Zarabeth (Kathleen Wilhoite) Witchboard (1986) Zarabeth comes quite low down on my list of favourite movie psychics because, quite honestly, she scares me. As the resident psychic of the 1986 extravaganza of nonsensical silliness Witchboard, Zarabeth lends her considerable Lauperesque talents to persistent frenzied car bonnet roller Tawny Kitaen and her probably homosexual husband in order to deal with a self--inflicted spirit problem that, frankly, they deserved on the grounds of stupidity and for inviting the irritating guy from the office who everyone calls a knob behind his back and sometimes to his face to their boring party with his stupid weegee board, yeah, knobby guy, I said weegee, what you going to do about it? What's that? Oh, yeah, nothing, 'cos you're dead, your weegee board killed you. Sucks to be you.    What Zarabeth brings to the psychic table is a down to earth, no-nonsense if discordantly tuned approach to dead bothering and a hair do that's po...