Clevercell Very disappointing...

SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Matho The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

milosm-17844 Steven Spielberg is not one of my favorite directors, but I respect his work.Considering that this is a film from the beginning of his career, filmed with low budget and poor quality film equipment, I would dare to say that this is a masterpiece! The truth is that I was kid when I first time saw it, and I could not find it for a long time afterwards. But when I saw it again, as an adult, feeling was the same, FEAR!Don't get me wrong, I'm not some kind of a sissy, I'm a big fan of horror movies.I can watch the sickest and bloodiest movies without any problems, almost nothing can scare me. But this movie scares me. The atmosphere of the movie is so creepy. Without fancy visual special effects, without special make-up effects. Only the story of the movie, some decent acting and obvious talent of Steven Spielberg. I highly recommend it to the real fans of horror.

christopher-underwood Early TV movie effort from Spielberg that is rather uneven. I'm not really sure why this doesn't work better. I guess there was little money and a lot of TV people looking over his shoulder that may have not helped the process. Whatever the reason, the location screams that it is a set, so flat and airless. When the spirits arise and the winds begin to blow, I realized why it had been absent, before but surely some sense of heat or rain would have given some sense of life to this clapperboard and cardboard. I also wonder whether using Ralph Bellamy was a good idea, he didn't seem to fit too well but would probably have been difficult to tell. Sandy Dennis is pretty much as she always is and I always like her but here when everyone seems a bit strange we could have done with a more staid central character. Otherwise, reasonable enough and there are scares particularly at the end, even if they are a bit undermined by an early sign of sentimentality creeping in and almost spoiling things.

bob_meg It's almost unfair to judge this film by today's standards. A) it's a TV movie; B) It's a TV HORROR movie; C) It's a TV horror movie from the '70s. All of these factors combine to literally guarantee that it doesn't have the fright factor of the classic theatrical horror from that era. Sure, there were some creepy TV movies in the '70s, but none had the intensity or the special effects to blow you out of your seat. "Drag Me to Hell," this ain't.Let's face it...if you've gone to the trouble to hunt this one down on You Tube or on bootleg VHS, you've done so to get a glimpse of Spielberg's guerrilla-style movie-making from his early, hungry days. And on that score, "Something Evil" doesn't disappoint. Say what you will about Steve-o's stuff of recent years, back then his films were FUN. ESPECIALLY for film buffs.He didn't just throw in fancy camera-work to draw attention to itself. It always had a purpose, it always had subtext, and it always was original. Take the scene where Whittaker is bouncing the ball against the house. Spielberg clocks the pace with the maddening repetitiveness of a metronome as Dennis does a simultaneous freak-out, smashing the ceramic pentacles she's making to pieces. Her subsequent violent rage against the young actor, even though shot tastefully from a distance, is truly disturbing. Mission accomplished. Ditto for the sly scene where Dennis peers terrified from her kitchen door at a young man, the door chain links neatly overlaying his eyes, like ominous glasses.And even though the mason jar, baby-crying gag is a bit absurd, the way it's shot is so masterful, it draws you in and creeps you out. Again, this is not a wham-bang thriller, but it definitely has its moments of uneasiness. I wasn't bored. If you like Spielberg's early TV work and "Duel," in particular, check it out.

matt_tawesson-1 My mother first saw this movie when it premiered on television back in 1972. I first saw it a few years ago on the Encore channel (roughly part of it), and thought it was an amazing film. I had recently been looking for a copy on DVD but couldn't find one until I got one on ioffer.com (it was a copy that was recorded on TV and transferred to DVD). In my case, it looked great, and all that. Sandy Dennis played Marjorie Worden and Darren McGavin played her husband Paul. Johnny Whitaker is the couple's son, Steven, and the daughter Laurie is played by twin girls (played by Sandy and Debbie Lampert). The family moves into a farmhouse in the countryside, without knowing until later that the previous occupant had been driven to suicide by jumping out of the 2nd floor window of the barn. Then, some mysterious things start happening shortly later on. Marjorie is hearing sounds of a baby crying, the family has a party at the house (and two guests mysteriously die on the way back home), multi-colored gel in a mason jar in the barn then in the house, and the son is being possessed by the devil! Another shocking thing is the sight of those scary ass red demon eyes peering out of a window while some silly commercial is filmed. Several other mysterious things are seen in the film, but they are odd as well. To me, those hideous eyes are what freaked me out the most. The family then moves out of the house to get away from the evil lurking in there. This movie never runs very long (at 73 minutes), but it's still worth watching. It would be great if this could be released on DVD (commercially), but until so, just deal with what is recorded from TV.