Josh Munroe likes to pull scams with his friend Frazer. His single computer-illiterate mom Terry (Karen Allen) is overwhelmed. Karl Hochman is a technician at the computer store and also "The Address-Book Killer". He gets into a car crash and sent to the hospital. As he gets a CAT scan, an electrical surge downloads his consciousness into the network. He retrieves a page from Terry's address book and starts killing people on that page. Former computer hacker Bram Walker (Chris Mulkey) turn white hat in a main frame company tracks down the ghost in the machine.

The kid is annoying while a brat. Karen Allen isn't able to save him or the movie. Mulkey is too old and doesn't look like a hacker. He's more of a blue collar guy. This was a time before the internet took off. I'm willing to accept some of the cheesy ideas about computers. The filmmakers spent a lot of time and money to represent the computer world but it isn't that compelling. It looks kind of bad. There are moments of fun horror. The kills are similar to the Final Destination movies. However, every good moment is interrupted by a bad moment like the creepy stripe tease in front of the boys. In the end, the bad moments outnumber the good.

One of the dumbest movies I ever had to struggle through AND an ideal example to illustrate just how worthless the horror genre was during the early 90's. Really everything about this movie is horrid, starting with the nonsensical idea of a serial killer without personality who continues his murderous habits after he died, and this through computers, dishwashers and other electrical household items! The guy got killed in a car accident but his "soul" was transferred to cyberspace so he can cheerfully go on with his modus operandi of slaughtering everybody who's in Karen Allen's address book. Considering the premise of this film is so ridiculous, you'd expect that the cast -and crew members themselves wouldn't take their jobs very seriously, right? Well hell no! There's absolutely no sense of humor in the script and every 'actor' devotedly produces his/her lines like as if they are part of some eminent Hitchcock production. The overuse of visual, headache-provoking effects is very annoying and also pretty pointless, since no one really knows how a soul floating around in cyberspace must be portrayed. So all they do is showing some wild and colorful images that look like irritating screen-savers. There's no suspense (or what else did you expect) and the gore – although plenty – is not at all convincing. The only element worth mentioning (childish of me as well, I know) is the supportive role of a young and ambitious actress called Shevonne Durkin. This cute and cherubic girl appears as the babysitter who shows some beautiful cleavage before getting her butt electrocuted. My generous rating 2 out of 10 therefore entirely belongs to her.

Not bad techno-thriller is reasonably slick and well paced, and delivers some okay thrills for not particularly demanding viewers. Granted, it requires one to completely suspend their disbelief, but that hardly makes it unique for this kind of thing. If you can buy into it for entertainments' sake, you may find it to your liking.

The story deals with a sick, sadistic psycho killer who robs address books from people and then murders everybody in the books. (One would think this would keep him pretty damn busy.) His name is Karl Hochman (Ted Marcoux),and he works as a technician at a computer store. While on his way to murder his latest victim, single mom Terry Munroe (Karen Allen, appealing as always) he gets impatient and gets into a horrible car accident. While his body is being scanned at a hospital, his "imprint" or "soul" or whatever is sucked into a computer mainframe thanks to a power surge. In this form he can then continue to stalk Terry, ruining her credit and depleting her bank account, while going about slaughtering those in *her* address book. His ingenious methods have him utilizing various electrical devices. Two delicious set pieces involve a hot air blower in a washroom and a microwave oven. You have to see these to believe them.

Director Rachel Talalay rebounds somewhat from her fumbled, lame debut of "Freddy's Dead" in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise by keeping this moving well enough no matter how much the script, by William Osborne and William Davies, may have us shaking our heads. Allen is great, although her characters' cluelessness may frustrate some in the audience. The film also gives a nice co-starring role to veteran supporting and character actor Chris Mulkey, as the outlaw hacker turned respectable employee who becomes the hero of the piece. Marcoux is a hoot as the very unsubtle villain (he actually *sniffs* Terry's address book, for Gods' sake!). Wil Horneff is decent as Terry's rebellious son, and Jessica Walter ("Play Misty for Me", 'Arrested Development') is on hand as Terry's mom. The supporting players include such familiar faces as Brandon Quintin Adams (the lead of another horror film, Wes Cravens' "The People Under the Stairs"),Rick Ducommun, Nancy Fish, Carl Gabriel Yorke, Chris Ellis, and 'The West Wing' cast member Richard Schiff in a bit; Schiffs' brother Paul was the films' producer. Super sexy Shevonne Durkin provides appreciable eye candy as the babysitter. The various computer generated special effects are well done, and overall this is diverting stuff for anybody ready to turn off their brains for an hour and a half. One thing you have to enjoy is the image of the killers' creative way of staging a family night at home.

Seven out of 10.