Brian De Palma demonstrates the drawbacks of a film-school education by overexploiting every cornball trick of style in the book: slow motion, split screen, long takes, and soft focus abound, all to no real point. This 1976 thriller, about a high school outcast (Sissy Spacek) who uses her telekinetic powers to massacre the graduating class, contains a number of interesting ideas. But as with most of his films, De Palma can’t keep track of them, and by the last reel everything blows up in his face. He’s an overachiever—which might not make for good movies, but at least he’s seldom dull.