Television Reviews : ‘Body of Evidence’ Unfolds on CBS

Scares come easier in the darkness of a movie theater than they do in the more brightly-lit, distraction-prone premises where most people watch television. The larger the screen, the louder the screams.

But there are always exceptions. The made-for-TV “Body of Evidence” (Sunday at 9 p.m., Channels 2 and 8) is a more intense nailbiter than many a theatrical film thriller.

True, the first part of the film has a by-the-numbers quality. A criminal pathologist (Barry Bostwick) and a police detective (Tony Lo Bianco) in a Massachusetts town investigate a series of brutal stranglings of young women. The doctor’s new wife (Margot Kidder), who works as a nurse at the hospital where the bodies are taken, feels somewhat uneasy in her big new house. So does her young daughter.

Suddenly the screws tighten. What happens shouldn’t be revealed in advance. Let’s just say that by the end of the film I was no longer on the edge of my chair; I was down on the floor. That’s the only advantage of watching thrillers at home--you can move closer to the screen in a vain attempt to warn the good guys.

Other than providing a good scare, Cynthia Whitcomb’s script (from a story she concocted with director Roy Campanella II) doesn’t have much of anything on its mind--unless it’s to demonstrate the advantages of tear gas to firearms as a method of fending off dangerous murderers.

Actually, that’s a relatively unexplored subject for a TV movie. But this is no cause movie. It’s an entertainment: written with clarity, acted with conviction, edited with a sure hand.