If you can figure out what’s going on in 1979’s The Psychotronic Man, you’re definitely doing better than most people who have sat through this film.

Filmed on location in Chicago (at a time when the original Mayor Richard Daley was supposedly encouraging filmmaker to shoot anywhere but Chicago because he didn’t want anyone to film anything that could make his city look bad), The Psychotronic Man tells the story of an alcoholic barber named Rocky (Peter Spelson).  One day, after work, Rocky decides to drive the long way home, which apparently means driving through every inch of rural Illinois.  Seriously, you really do have to wonder just where exactly Rocky lives.  Rocky decides to pull over so that he can get some sleep.  Suddenly, his car is floating in the air.  Was Rocky just having a dream or were aliens trying to abduct him?  Rocky’s concerned and so is his wife and so is his mistress.

Rocky goes to a doctor but the doctor has nothing useful to tell him, beyond prescribing his some aspirin for his headaches.  Rocky tries to investigate on his own but this just leads to him getting a shotgun pulled on him by a suspicious farmer.  This is when Rocky discovers that he can kill people with his mind.

How has Rocky developed the power to kill people with his mind?  Your guess is as good as mine, though the film does feature an professor at the University of Chicago who suggests that Rocky’s power is one that we all have, buried deep in our subconscious.  Perhaps Rocky’s meeting with the aliens caused this powers to be unlocked.  I mean, it’s as good an explanation as any, though you have to wonder why aliens would suddenly want to give an unappealing barber the ability to kill people with his mind.  That seems pretty irresponsible on the part of the aliens.

Well, no matter!  Rocky’s in a lot of trouble now and he’s got not only the police but also a government agent after him.  (The government would like to learn how Rocky developed his “psychotronic powers.”)  This leads to several scenes of Rocky and the police walking around Chicago, looking for each other.  I would say that probably about 75% of this film is just filler.  The plot gets repetitive in record time, as does the bell-dominated soundtrack.  Every few minutes, a bell rings as if we need to be reminded that Rocky is one step closer to meeting his psychotronic destiny.

Personally, I enjoyed seeing the location footage of Chicago and the surrounding countryside.  It was obvious that the film was shot without bothering to get permits so the majority of the people in the background were probably just people trying to either shop or get to work.  That said, The Psychotronic Man plays out a torturously slow pace and Rocky is not at all an appealing main character.  Even before he turns into a psycho mind killer, he’s a drunk who slips from a flask while driving and who is cheating on his wife.  As far as I’m concerned, Rocky deserved whatever he got!

Finally, this film has lived on due to the fact that it introduced the word Psychotronic to the world.  Michael J. Weldon later borrowed the term for The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, The Psychotronic Video Guide, and Psychotronic Video magazine.  Psychotronic is usually a term used to describe low-budget B-movies, the majority of which are better than The Psychotronic Man.