When Jennifer (Meg Tilly), a young ballet dancer, receives a distressing phone call from her mother that results in an attempted suicide, Jennifer and her doctor boyfriend, Stuart (Tim Matheson), head back to her hometown to visit her family. Upon arriving in the small Midwestern town, Jennifer and Stuart begin to notice several of the residents acting strangely, including her younger brother, Eddie (Bill Paxton), and an old friend who, one night at a bar, breaks his own fingers after being rejected by Jennifer when asked for a dance.
The town’s situation continues to get weirder when the next day Stuart’s car is intentionally, repeatedly smashed into by a disgruntled driver. While Stuart and local doctor, Carr (Hume Cronyn), try to figure out what’s causing the mass hysteria, Jennifer visits her childhood friend, Margo (Amy Stryker), only to be almost killed when Margo’s children trap her inside their garage and set it on fire.
Jennifer’s mother eventually dies, but Stuart is under the impression it wasn’t natural. Trying to escape and seek help, Jennifer, Stuart, and Carr discover the bridge out of town has been intentionally destroyed, trapping them. The townsfolk become more agitated, and it isn’t long until Stuart begins showing signs of violent tendencies. When some strangers in “official use only” trucks begin poking around, Stuart, still maintaining some self-control, discovers a leak from a nearby toxic waste vault has seeped into the soil and contaminated the dairy farm owned by Jennifer’s family, where the local milk is manufactured.
What sounds like a remake of George A. Romero’s 1973 cult classic, The Crazies, is apparently based on an idea by Stephen King. And while there are extreme similarities to Romero’s film, Impulse contains enough original material to set it apart as its own work. The biggest difference between the films is that, here, the infected characters retain some of their original mindset, whereas the victims in Crazies turn into mindless psychopaths. This makes the stakes higher for the survival of our heroes, especially when Stuart, after having threatened Jennifer with lustful violence, sees the error of his ways and tries his best to discover the cause of the contagion before his mind breaks completely.
The cast is good, especially Tilly, who maintains a sense of vulnerability and toughness throughout most of the film. Matheson is sympathetic as the love interest and eventual antihero, while Paxton gives off good evil-sibling vibes. The screenplay (by Nicholas Kazan and Don Carlos Dunaway) keeps the pace moving while being mostly unpredictable, with plenty of sustained tension. There’s also a hinted backstory involving Eddie’s incestuous desires for Jennifer, and the turbulent mother/daughter relationship between Jennifer and her mom.
Impulse might not rank high on the classics mantel, but it’s a good, suspenseful little movie that deserves rediscovery.