The Evil (1978) New World/Horror RT: 89 minutes Rated R (violence and language) Director: Gus Trikonis Screenplay: Galen Thompson and Gus Trikonis Music: Johnny Harris Cinematography: Mario Di Leo Release date: March 8, 1978 (US) Cast: Richard Crenna, Joanna Pettet, Andrew Prine, Cassie Yates, George O’Hanlon Jr., Lynne Moody, Mary Louise Weller, George Viharo, Victor Buono, Milton Selzer, Ed Bakey, Galen Thompson, Emory Souza. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ** ½
The title The Evil is about as generic as they come. It doesn’t tell you much about the movie except that it’s in the horror genre. It sounds like a movie you’d only watch on cable or as a rental from the 99-cent bargain shelf at your local video store. The latter is how I first saw it. During a period of unemployment in the early 90s (it was summertime), I’d often hit up West Coast Video for cheapie rentals. The Evil, a movie I didn’t hear good things about, is one of the titles I brought home. I thought it was okay. I decided to make it part of this week’s grindhouse package when I realized it was executive produced by schlockmeister Roger Corman and originally distributed by New World.
As far as haunted house movies go, The Evil isn’t too bad. It’s no Poltergeist or Burnt Offerings (not by a long shot!) but it actually tries to tell a scary story rather than inundate the viewer with a lot fancy CGI effects. While it doesn’t wholly succeed, its efforts are commendable.
Director Gus Trikonis (Take This Job and Shove It) starts things off just right with the caretaker (Bakey, Telefon) of a musty Civil War-era house being incinerated by the furnace when he goes to the basement to investigate strange noises. He was getting it ready for its new owners, psychiatrist CJ Arnold (Crenna, First Blood) and his physician wife Caroline (Pettet, Casino Royale), who plan to convert it into a drug rehab clinic. First, they have to clean it up. They invite friends and former addicts- professor Raymond (Prine, Amityville II: The Possession), his student/girlfriend Laurie (Weller, Animal House), practical joker Pete (O’Hanlon, Getting Wasted), level-headed Felicia (Moody, Scream Blacula Scream), dog owner Mary (Yates, FM) and local electrician (Viharo, Return to Macon County)- to aid them in their venture.
Soon after everybody’s arrival, strange things of a paranormal nature start happening starting with Caroline spotting an apparition within moments of entering the place. It’s the ghost of the house’s original owner, Vargas (Thompson, Project: Kill), who built the house on unholy ground or some such nonsense. Other bizarre events, like Mary’s German Shepherd Kaiser turning on her, follow. It starts storming outside. Then CJ inadvertently unleashes an evil spirit when he removes an iron cross securing a trap door in the basement. All the doors and windows go into lockdown mode trapping everybody inside. They try to find a way out. The evil stalking the house kills them off one by one in gruesome ways. It all leads to a showdown with Old Scratch himself played with campy glee by Victor Buono (King Tut from the Batman TV series).
It’s that last thing that makes The Evil stand out slightly from others of its ilk. You see, The Evil is definitely a product of its era with plot elements borrowed from The Exorcist and The Omen only it’s a comparatively pale echo of both flicks. For all its plotting and theological conversations (CJ is an atheist, Caroline is a believer), The Evil is mostly slow and predictable. It’s not exactly boring but it isn’t exactly a thrill-a-moment affair either. The death scenes are okay. Somebody spontaneously combusts while attempting an escape. Two people are electrocuted. Another falls to their death. Somebody drowns in quicksand. As you can see, they don’t hold a candle to priests being impaled by falling lightning rods or photographers being beheaded in freak accidents. As for scares, I didn’t really find any. Anything jump-worthy can be seen coming from a mile away.
However, when The Evil makes its sudden jump at the end into dealings with the Devil, it gets a little more interesting. Although it predates The Beyond by three years, I couldn’t help but think of Fulci’s grisly classic with the notion of finding an entrance to Hell or something like that. I wish the rest of The Evil had the courage to be as weird. It spends so much time putting its characters through the motions; it doesn’t stop to explore more intriguing ideas.
To his credit, Trikonis tries to make something of the main characters differing religious ideologies but doesn’t quite get there. The actors do a decent job in their thinly-written roles BUT I had to laugh at the physical aspect of their performances. There are a few scenes where the house shakes and rumbles; it’s clear that the actors are faking being thrown around and knocked down. Their movements are obviously deliberate. No amount of fancy camerawork can cover that up. Well, it is a Roger Corman movie so….
Trikonis, who wrote the movie with supporting player Thompson, is to be commended for making an effort with The Evil. Made on a budget of $700,000, the effects look pretty good. At the same time, they don’t dominate the movie. This is old school exploitation filmmaking. For all its faults, I honestly prefer The Evil to most of today’s PG-13 piffle even if it doesn’t bring on the blood and boobies a good R-rated exploitation movie should. It’s watchable and even fun at times. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come together like it should.
