Film Review: 'The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975)'

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The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975), a feature film directed by J. Lee Thompson; starring Margot Kidder; Michael Sarrazin, Jennifer O'Neill, and Cornelia Sharpe. Based on a best-selling novel by Max Ehrlich, this film was hyped quite a bit when I was a teen-ager. I saw it in the theater in first release, and loved it.

Unfortunately, it seems to have been almost totally forgotten, despite the presence of what were big stars at the time: Kidder, Sarrazin, and O’Neill. The director, J. Lee Thompson, showed his directing chops with the original production of Cape Fear (1962) and The Guns of Navarone (1961). This film also features a memorably creepy score by Jerry Goldsmith, the great master of horror movie soundtracks. Camerawork is provided by Victor Kemper, who shot the masterpiece Dog Day Afternoon for Sidney Lumet (not too shabby)!

Despite this enviable pedigree, Peter Proud never got a VHS or conventional DVD release in all of this time, and it’s currently not available for streaming anywhere except YouTube (see link above).

But someone must have remembered it, because it’s recently become available on Blu-Ray. Plus, according to the IMDb, there’s a remake in development that is attached to—of all people—David Fincher of Fight Club fame. I’d definitely pay to see that one, if it ever makes it out of development.

Dig That Groovy Score

The original Peter Proud was part of the great 70s occult obsession, which included novels, films and television shows about ESP, reincarnation, devil-worshipping, body-switching, etc. I wouldn’t say this film is “scary,” but I would call it very haunting, especially the Goldsmith score, the creepiest parts of which accompany repetitive scenes from a memorably disturbing nightmare.

The plot concerns the title character, a California college professor named Proud, who suffers from a recurring nightmare. In the nightmare, he sees a woman in a rowboat rowing across a lake at night. The woman encounters a naked man swimming in the water, and kills him by bludgeoning him with an oar until he sinks to the bottom of the lake.

During these nightmares, Professor Proud calls out in a strange voice to a woman called “Marcia.” He also dreams about a vintage sports-car and landmarks from an unfamiliar place. Eventually, he begins an investigation which includes consulting a prominent psychiatrist. This leads to a stint at a sleep lab, where his nightmares strangely don’t register as dreams on the monitoring equipment.

Later, he sees a random television documentary that features landmarks from the same town in his nightmares. The town is somewhere in Massachusetts. Proud and his skeptical girlfriend, Nora (Cornelia Sharpe--a famous "supermodel" of the 70s), drive through the Bay State looking for the town and eventually they find it: it's Springfield, the state capital.

Somewhere along the way, he realizes that when he visits scenes from his nightmares in real life, he stops dreaming about those particular items. But fed-up Nora ditches him when he becomes too obsessed with the investigation.

Eventually, he meets the woman in the rowboat from his nightmares, although she’s much older; her name is Marcia Curtis and she’s a wealthy, prominent citizen of Springfield (Margot Kidder). Marcia has a beautiful grown daughter named Ann (Jennifer O’Neill--another famous 70s supermodel), to whom Proud is immediately attracted. Ann returns his affection and soon they are having an affair, which causes Marcia a great deal of distress.

Icky Themes

One big, kinda icky problem: Both Proud and Marcia begin to believe that Proud is the reincarnation of Jeff Curtis, Marcia’s late husband—and Ann’s father. Yup, there's a big ol' incestuous thing going on, which may make some viewers squirm. (Jeff supposedly drowned in a lake accident when Ann was a baby, but that's not the real story of how he died.)

I won’t tell you how Peter Proud ends, but this is a film that sticks with the viewer for a long time, despite dragging in some parts. That music, those haunting images, and that ending! If the remake ever happens, I hope they keep the score. Critics gave it a lukewarm review at the time of release and especially ridiculed the terrible "aging" make-up worn by the beautiful Margot Kidder, who was only 26 when this film was made. Crappy make-up aside, I rate it 8/10, considerably higher than its current IMDb user score of 6.6/10.

If you love that creepy, haunting, slow-burn 70s horror vibe, you may also want to check out The Other (1972); The Haunting of Julia aka Full Circle (1977); The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972); Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1972); and The Mephisto Waltz (1971). Other, more famous films in a similar style include Don't Look Now (1973) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975).

Most of these films are on disc, at streaming sites, or at least on YouTube.