SPECTRE (1977)

Dr. Hamilton (Gig Young) arrives at the home of his former criminology partner William Sebastian (Robert Culp) in answer to a desperate plea for help. Hamilton is in trouble with his hospital for his alcoholism and too fervent attention to young nurses; Sebastian has become a student of the occult and is trying to help Anitra Cyon who believes that her family back in England is involved in black magic. Hamilton is reluctant to help until Anitra, a very seductive young woman, visits. She tells Sebastian that she no longer wants his help, but Sebastian thinks there is deception afoot, and sure enough, when he opens the mystical Book of Tobit and presses it against her, she shrieks and falls writhing to the floor, emitting smoke and eventually disintegrating. It turns out she was not Anitra but a succubus in disguise. Though Hamilton still doesn't quite believe in the supernatural, He accompanies Sebastian to England to visit the Cyons and on the way, visit the home of Qualus, a fellow occultist whom they find dead in a room in flames with a pentagram on the floor. Standing in the pentagram for protection, they glimpse what appears to be an actual demon. Hamilton begins to believe and the next day, they meet the Cyons : the real Anitra, decidedly more plain than her demonic double, her younger brother Mitri and her older brother Sir Geoffrey, seemingly stuffy but actually rather decadent. Geoffrey has the house staffed with sexy young women, a couple of whom visit Hamilton in his room after hours with some whips and chains, assuming he might be in need of a booty call. After some investigation, Sebastian learns that when a Druid ring on the estate called the Fire Pit was excavated some time ago, the workmen all died, the imprisoned demon Asmodeus escaped, and may be controlling Geoffrey. But is Mitri also up to no good? And can Anitra really be trusted?

This film, co-written by Star Trek's Gene Roddenberry, gets away with a surprising amount of nasty occult doings considering it was a TV-movie (and probably a pilot). It conjures up the work of British author Dennis Wheatley (THE DEVIL RIDES OUT) and builds to a blood-and-thunder climax involving skimpily-clad chanting Satanists and an attempt at a human sacrifice to Asmodeus. (A couple of brief shots of bare breasts appear to have been spliced into European theatrical prints, which is the version available on YouTube). It can't quite overcome its TV-movie budget and style, but all things considered, it works pretty well. Culp and Young (pictured above) make a good team, though Young, whose career was hurt by his alcoholism, seems at times a bit fragile; he died in a murder/suicide event the next year. Their rapport seems to prefigure that of Mulder and Scully in The X-Files with Sebastian as a true believer and Hamilton as the skeptic. The young John Hurt is Mitir, Ann Bell is Anitra, and James Villiers is Geoffrey, and all do well enacting characters who are mostly unsympathetic but remain engaging enough to keep us interested. Gordon Jackson (Upstairs Downstairs) is a British cop who is looking for less occult evidence to track down the killer of Qualus. There are many incidents and subplots. One involves a voodoo curse on Sebastian which has left him with a weak heart. Sebastian is cured of his alcoholism thanks to a spell worked by Sebastian's housekeeper (played by Majel Barrett, Rodenberry’s wife, who would certainly have been a cast regular had the show been picked up). There is also a mummy, a Black Cathedral, a gold bullet, and the gory death of a dog. It was unwise of the filmmakers to show us glimpses of the demons (Asmodeus in particular looks like a man in a Halloween costume), but in general, this is good demonic fun for Halloween. [YouTube; the print is a bit murky but watchable.]