In the 1978 movie The Astral Factor — about a serial killer who is able to turn invisible — there's a scene 45 minutes into the movie that I'm confused about.
So far in the plot, we've learned that this serial killer, Roger Sands, has figured out how to become invisible while locked up in a mental asylum. (He also has some sort of telekinesis and astral projection powers... it's a little confusing.) After escaping, he's hunting down five women who he had 'missed' before being caught the first time.
At this point in the movie, he's in an alley behind a theater where one of his targets has a job as a dancer. A cop on patrol drives by, notices him, then drives down the alley to confront him. The cop gets out of the car, walks up to Roger, and tells him to leave, the theater is closed. Roger uses his telekinesis to trigger the car's gas pedal, causing it to drive forward and hit the cop. He continues using his power to drive back and forth and drag the cop a bit down the alley — it's very clear he's dead at that point.
What I'm confused about is that after this — nothing seems to happen. This cop and his rather pointed murder are forgotten and never mentioned again that I recall. A few scenes later, the detectives are staking out the very same theater to try and protect the dancer while she's doing her dress rehearsal. It seems that the murdered police officer in the alley would be a little relevant here, but they all seem to be oblivious to it!
Did I miss something? Was the cop's murder actually mentioned/relevant to the plot somehow? I don't think it was necessary to show Roger's telekinetic abilities — we already saw that just after he broke out of the asylum when he buried the security guard in an open grave using his powers.
The scene is here, starting at 45:01; it lasts less than 2 minutes:
(This is specifically about the original 1978 cut; according to Wikipedia there was an alternate, re-edited version from 1984 with different dialog and additional scenes called "Invisible Strangler" but I think that might as well be a separate movie entirely since the plot is different. I'd like to know about this scene in the context of this version of the movie.)
