
Black Rainbow
1989 · Movie · R · 102 min · ★ 5.8
Mike Hodges ('Flash Gordon', 'Get Carter') wrote and directed this supernatural chiller as a meditation on the human race's ability to destroy the world, a gothic tale of suspense and the occult, guaranteed to send shivers down your spine. Martha Travis (Rosanna Arquette, 'Pulp Fiction', 'Crash') is a travelling clairvoyant on the road with her sceptic father (Jason Robards, 'Once Upon a Time in the West', 'Magnolia'). During a séance Martha communicates a message from a dead man to his wife in the audience. Shocked the wife insists her husband is still alive. Later that evening the husband is killed by a ruthless assassin. As Martha foresees more and more tragic events journalist Gary Wallace (Tom Hulce, 'Amadeus', 'Animal House') follows the pair in pursuit of a hot story... with catastrophically eerie results. Sent direct-to-video by its struggling distributor on initial release, 'Black Rainbow' unfairly never got the exposure it deserved, newly restored from the original negative audiences can now discover the darkness at the end of the rainbow, as never before.
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Streaming on BFI Player Classics.
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Details
- Years
- 1989
- Release date
- 1989-12-05
- Language
- English
- Rated
- R
- Runtime
- 102 min
- TMDB rating
- 5.8/10 (47 votes)
- Budget
- $7,000,000
Themes
- father daughter relationship
Awards & recognition
- Sitges Film Festival Best Actress award · 1989
- Sitges Film Festival Best Screenplay award · 1989
Cast & crew

Rosanna Arquette
as Martha Travis

Jason Robards
as Walter Travis

Tom Hulce
as Gary Wallace

Mark Joy
as Lloyd Harley
- RR
Ron Rosenthal
as Lieutenant Irving Weinberg

John Bennes
as Ted Silas
- LP
Linda Pierce
as Mary Kuron

Olek Krupa
as Tom Kuron
- MT
Marty Terry
as Mrs. Adams
- EG
Ed Grady
as Editor, Geoff McBain
Directed by Mike Hodges