THE EVIL (1978)

Old handyman Sam is trying to clean up the Vargas house, a Civil War-era mansion that has been empty for years. He gets freaked out, first by all the cobwebs then by weird sounds that lead him to the basement where a fireball shoots out of the furnace and burns him to death. Next, the house's new owners show up: a psychiatrist (Richard Crenna, at left), his wife (Joanna Pettet), and a teacher (Andrew Prine) who are planning to open a drug rehab center in the house. They've brought a group of students and former rehab patients to help out and they're all pretty gung ho about pitching in to work, but odd things begin happening right away: Pettet sees a demonic statue turn its head to face her, and a dog that belongs to one of the students wanders down to the basement and goes nuts, attacking his owner (Cassie Yates) then disappearing into the bowels of the house. Crenna is a strict rationalist so he has problems when his wife, who is of a more spiritual bent, starts seeing blurry visions of a ghost that she soon figures out is the original owner, Vargas, trying to warn the group to leave the house. Unfortunately, Crenna, poking around in the basement, sees a trapdoor in the floor, held shut by a huge metal crucifix. He pulls the cross out and, literally as we will eventually discover, all hell breaks loose. The doors and windows slam shut on their own and the film becomes a haunted house slasher movie as one by one the mansion's inhabitants wind up attacked (one woman is sexually assaulted by an invisible presence), injured (Prine slices into his own hand with a circular saw) or electrocuted. In the end, Crenna and Pettet go through the trap door and discover the devil (Victor Buono, below right), something of a dandy decked out in white. Can the two manage to lock Satan back up with the crucifix?

This overlooked and underrated B-movie is one of the better haunted house films. It’s not quite in the same rank as The Uninvited, The Haunting (1963), or The Amityville Horror, but it certainly is as good as other second-rank films like Burnt Offerings or The Sentinel, and it's way way better than the awful Haunting remake from 1999. After a few introductory scenes, it all takes place in the house, a very effective setting which combines some gothic set design with large empty rooms which become quite scary. The first part is a bit of slow burn, but by the time of the dog attack, around the 22-minute mark, things pick up and never let go. The acting gets better as the story goes along, with everyone going balls-out in the last half. Crenna, Pettet and Prine are professionals who might feel like they're slumming but they try not to show it. George O'Hanlon Jr. is good as a cocky clowny fellow who provides a nice fake scare early on, and Lynne Moody is equally good as the woman who is assaulted. The director, Gus Trikonis, started out as a dancer, played one of the Sharks in West Side Story, was married for a few years to Goldie Hawn, and wound up in a long career directing B-movies and TV shows. He provides some nice stylistic touches here, mostly in the scenes of menace. 

Even critics who love this movie usually point to the ending as a major mistake. After spending the whole time in the dusty old mansion, Crenna and Pettet end up in a bright white room with the chortling and chubby Victor Buono as the devil. He looks nothing like any depiction of the devil that I've ever seen, though Mick Jagger's description of him as "a man of wealth and taste" in "Sympathy for the Devil" might be what the director was going for here.) As the scene continues, his face takes on a more satanic look, complete with horns. Buono underplays and comes off as slimy rather than truly evil. I don't think anyone who has written about this movie actually likes the ending, with most reacting with laughter rather than terror. For some, it ruins the whole movie. I have to agree that I would have liked to have seen a more traditionally dark and Satanic climax, but if you just accept it, it works OK. (The first time I saw this, I admit the ending made me laugh, but this time around, maybe because I was prepared for it, I didn't really have a problem.) There are rumors that some prints of the film left out the entire scene with Buono, but I've never seen that confirmed and it's unclear how the movie would have had a satisfying ending. As a solid B-horror film, I recommend this. [YouTube]