Tess: You can't go on killing forever, Patrick.
Patrick: You wanna bet?
The First Power is a 1990 horror film written and directed by Robert Resnikoff, starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Tracy Griffith, Mykelti Williamson, and Jeff Kober.
After Serial Killer Patrick Channing (Kober) is given the gas chamber for committing several demonic murders, his spirit is released and given power by the Devil. Now Detective Russell Logan (Phillips), the cop who caught him before, must find a way to do it again.
Tropes
- Almost Kiss: Logan and Tess are going to kiss but—nervous over Channing—she keeps getting startled by noises until Logan says It's Probably Nothing but goes to check it out. Unfortunately, it's not nothing.
- Animal Assassin: Detective Franklin is run down by Channing driving a horse-drawn buggy, who lets the horse trample him with its hooves.
- All Just a Dream:
- Detective Russ Logan has one where the gas is turned off in Patrick's execution chamber and Patrick jumps through the mirrored wall to stab him, forcing Logan to shoot him in self-defense.
- Logan chases Patrick into a hotel only for Patrick to burst through a door and put an axe in his head. Turns out it's a vision Tess is having, and she rushes off to the hotel to prevent it.
- At the end, Tess Seaton had one where Logan wakes up and attacks Tess. Or Was It a Dream?
- Body Snatcher: Channing has the ability to possess people, as well as animals.
- The Cameo: Bill Moseley as a bartender.
- Cassandra Truth: The opening scene has Sister Marguerite telling the Church elders that Channing's murders are a Portent of Doom. They're understandably reluctant to act on this information in the late twentieth century, and tell her to return to her convent and meditate on the Lord. In seclusion.
- Catchphrase: "See you around, buddy-boy."
- Child by Rape: At Patrick's childhood home, Tess has a psychic vision which reveals that he's the result of his mother being raped by her father.
- Criminal Mind Games: Channing is all about this, according to Tess, as he's revealing himself to Logan and then using his powers to disappear again.
- Deal with the Devil: Channing kills in Satan's name, who in turn granted him the power of possessing people upon death.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Channing's voice is this.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
- Patrick stabs Logan in the gut with a large knife in their first battle, but he keeps fighting long enough for backup to arrive.
- One encounter with Patrick ends with him falling on a pipe, which impales his current temporal body.
- Logan stabs him in the heart at the end, killing him for good.
- Improvised Cross: Tess is able to ward Channing off temporarily by showing him an amulet marked with a pentagram.
- It Was There I Swear: After his Catapult Nightmare, Logan finds a room in his house splattered with blood. He tells the policeman who knock on his door to fetch a forensics team, only to find the room pristine again. Later he hears Channing's voice on Tess's answering machine, but when he plays it back there's no message.
- I Warned You:
- A nun named Sister Marguerite tries to convince her superiors that something must be done about Channing who is killing people with a satanic ritual. Her superiors ignore her.
- Tess warned Logan not to let Channing get executed. Logan didn't listen, resulting in Channing coming back as a powerful demonic spirit.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Russ Logan breaks his promise to Tess Seaton not to have Channing be given the death penalty believing he deserved it.
- Paper Destruction of Anger: Logan is introduced plotting the murders on a map, then scrunching it up in anger and throwing it at his cat. When Tess tips him off where the last murder will be, he realises the murders form a pentagram.
- Police Psychic: Downplayed; Tess Seaton runs a profitable psychic consultancy for yuppies and helps Detective Logan because the killer has added her to his list of potential victims, after she gave the detective an anonymous tip off about the satanic serial killer he's hunting. "I spend most of their time helping people with their love live, or telling them if their favourite TV show is going to be renewed."
- Psychopathic Manchild: Channing is able to look composed and in control, but he can be extremely childish and psychopathic when he's in a playful mood.
- Resurrected Murderer: Thanks to the first power.
- Rule of Three: The titular first power (resurrection) is one of the three powers Christ possessed, and which Channing is attempting to gain for himself. Tess has the second power, prophecy. The third power is possession.
- Sherlock Can Read: When Tess says she's a psychic, Logan asks if that's how she knew his home phone number and where Channing would strike next. Tess says a friend in the phone company gave her the former.
- Super Window Jump
- In their first confrontation Logan runs out of ammunition, so he charges at Patrick and they both go crashing through the window of the warehouse.
- Logan encounters Patrick in a church, which he leaves by doing a great physics-defying jump over Logan and through a stained glass window.
- Patrick, in a body of a derelict woman, enters Logan's apartment by jumping through a window and grabbing him.
- They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: After he's arrested, people who know Channing say this about him and were oblivious to the monster he truly is. Unfortunately thanks to the third power, Channing can look like anyone else.
- Turn in Your Badge: Logan is taken off the case after he breaks into Tess's house without a warrent and kidnaps her to go chasing after the killer only to end up with two detectives dead and a crazy story that Channing jumped off a building and ran away unharmed. Depressed over this dead friends Logan just says that he hopes he is going crazy, as if he's not then replacing him won't do any good.
- Villain-Beating Artifact: The only thing that can kill Channing is a crucifix with a blade hidden inside it.
- We Will Meet Again: Logan is understandably skeptical to be told this by Channing right before he's put in the gas chamber.
