The Entity (1981)

Director:

Sidney J. Furie

Writers:

Frank De Felitta (novel)
Frank De Felitta (writer)

Release Date:

4 helmikuu 1983 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

There is no escape from something you cannot see

Plot:

Supposedly based partially on a true story, a woman is tormented and sexually molested by an invisible demon.

Plot Keywords:

Attack | Demon | Haunted House | Mirror | Scream

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Barbara Hershey	...	Carla Moran
Ron Silver	...	Phil Sneiderman
David Labiosa	...	Billy
George Coe	...	Dr. Weber
Margaret Blye	...	Cindy Nash
Jacqueline Brookes	...	Dr. Cooley
Richard Brestoff	...	Gene Kraft
Michael Alldredge	...	George Nash
Raymond Singer	...	Joe Mehan
Allan Rich	...	Dr. Walcott
Natasha Ryan	...	Julie
Melanie Gaffin	...	Kim
Alex Rocco	...	Jerry Anderson
Sully Boyar	...	Mr. Reisz
Tom Stern	...	Woody Browne

Runtime:

125 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby (35 mm prints) | 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Canada:R (Ontario) | Netherlands:16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | Norway:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica, California, USA

Company:

Alleanza Cinematografica Italiana (A.C.I.)

Trivia:

For the scenes where the entity disturbs Carla Moran by touching her, the visual effects team designed a hot air stream's system, pretending fingers that "touch" her body.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Carla is first attacked by the demon, she is slapped rather hard in the face and her lip is bloodied. But in the subsequent scenes and the days following, there is no mark on her lip.

Quotes:

Carla Moran: All right. All right, bastard. I've finished running. So do what you want. Take your time - buddy. Take your time. Really, I'm thankful for the, uh... rest. I'm so... tired of being scared. So it's all right, it really is, it's all right. You can, uh, do anything you want to me, you can, uh, torture me, kill me, anything. But you can't have me. You cannot touch me.
[pause]
Carla Moran: That's mine.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Entity Files (2005) (V)

Soundtrack:

Tou Can't Have Me

Probably the darkest haunted house movie there is

Actually, "The Entity" isn't a haunted house movie as much as it is a haunted person movie since the ghost or "the entity" only follows the main character around. What makes this movie darker than say "Poltergeist" is that we hardly ever see the demon that causes all the trouble. We only see what it does and that's raping its poor victim without remorse.

A story such as this could easily have become campy, especially since it was made in 1981. Surprisingly, "The Entity" still holds up very well. The performances are convincing, the characters are believable and the special effects are reduced to a minimum. The whole script comes dangerously close to losing its balance when in the last third of the movie a team of parapsychologists turns up and has some "really rad ideas" on how to destroy The Entity. However, thankfully the movie doesn't go too much over the top.

The weak points of "The Entity" are that it's not too scary and too long, both for the sake of maintaining veracity since this is supposedly based on a true story. As a horror movie it could have used better pacing and some jump scenes. The score is minimalist in that it's only a thunderous beat that kicks in as soon as The Entity turns up. What worked well in "The Thing" is a bit too little here. The same can be said about the ending. An open ending can be a good thing, but there should at least come a satisfying climax before it and at the end the main character's situation should have changed for better or for worse. "The Entity" kind of just stops without the heroine achieving anything.

A remake by Hideo Nakata is in the works and it seems to be a good idea to hand the project to an Asian director as the rawness of the story would probably get lost in the hands of an American. Here's one original movie that can be bettered as much as it could be worsened. We'll see what happens.