Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

BA_Harrison Doctor C.J. Arnold (Richard Crenna) buys a dilapidated mansion which he intends to turn into a drug rehabilitation centre. Assembling a group of volunteers, C.J. sets about trying to clean up the building, but inadvertently releases an ancient evil force in the process.I'm not the biggest fan of haunted house horrors: they always seem to play fast and loose with the rules, with logic rarely an issue just so long as there are enough scares and atmosphere to last for a reasonable running time. The Evil is just as guilty as most, characters dying off one by one when they could all easily be dispatched in a single moment, but the film still manages to be one of the better examples of the sub-genre thanks to a decent cast, some impressive effects (an effectively spooky ghost, a nasty scene involving a circular saw, and two impressive full body burn stunts), and even an encounter with the Devil himself (played with more than a touch of camp by Victor Buono).In short, I wouldn't class The Evil as essential, but would definitely recommend it to those who particularly enjoy the sub-genre (it's nowhere near as good as The Shining, but is roughly on a par with The Changeling and Superstition, and better than The Legend of Hell House and Burnt Offerings).

Darkling_Zeist 'The Evil' is one of my personal favorites starring the delightful Andrew Prime. (Gotta' love Prine, man!) This a supremely effective spook house shocker; and along Prine, the stern, splendidly bearded Richard Crenna suddenly find themselves inadvertently at the veritable epicenter of a centuries old battle betwixt the benign forces of good and evil incarnate. Literally mere moments after entering this especially cavernous and foreboding property it swiftly becomes patently obvious that this malefic building means to do all the inhabitants considerable harm. This simple haunted house potboiler is enlivened by a series of genuinely creepy set pieces, some fine acting from the solid cast; and these creepy proceedings are well served by yet another marvelous score by ace British composer Johnny 'Fragment of Fear' Harris. 'The Evil' is a real find for old school horror fan like me, and it's is a definite keeper for those with a true yen for rather spooky, Gothic- tinged theatrics.

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Typical hunted house movie but with a twist in that the Devil himself, Victor Buono, lives in it and has been locked in the sub-basement for some 1,000 years. That's until avowed atheist and non-believing psychology professor A.C Arnold, Richard Crenna,releases him by pulling out the Christian Cross that kept him locked in all these years. C.J and his wife Caroline, Joanna Pettet, had bought the old pre Civil War Varges estate and plan to turn it into a drug rehabilitation center with the help of C.J's young protégé Psycology Professor Raymond Guy, Andrew Prine, and a number of his more then, in bing around and with the cute and handsome Raymond, willing students helping him clean it up in time for its grand opening the following month.In no time at all things start happening to the students that have no earthly or logical explanation! They together with the pet German Shepard Kaiser start getting knocked off one at a time by an unseen and evil entity that they unknowingly activated. It's Caroline who's a bible believer unlike her husband C.J, as well as everyone else in the house, who soon realizes that all this craziness that's happening in the house happens to be the Devil's work! in fact Caroline is able to see the ghost of Emilio Varges, Emory Souza, the previous owner of the house who's warning her to leave the place with everyone in it before the Devil gets his hands on them! As it turned out it's when the cat's finally out of the bag or the Devil out of the sub-basement that C.J comes to his senses in realizing that the Devil s on the loose and he's the one who made that all possible! But by then with almost the entire cast of the movie killed off it may be just a bit too late for him to do anything about it!***SPOILERS*** In what turned out to be the final battle between good and evil in the film has C.J pitted against the Devil himself who's all dressed in white,looking like "the Man from Glad",not his traditional Devil's Red. As the Devil gets into C.J's skull and puts the squeeze, by giving him a super size migraine headache, on it and just when it looked like he just about had it that Caroline pops out of nowhere with Christian Cross in hand to come to his rescue. The Devil for his part got a bit too overconfident and had dropped his guard not realizing that Caroline was somewhere in his domain, the sub-basement, and even worse then that had, in knowing the power of faith, his number. As for everyone else in the movie including the drunk caretaker of the house Sam, Ed Bakley, they all ended up dead by either fire a fall from grace or from a balcony or electrocution, the Devil's favorite way of killing his victim, and only Professor Raymond Guy was lucky enough to end up getting, if you can call it that, a proper burial. That's by him being swallowed up alive during a raging thunder and lighting storm in a quicksand pit outside the Varges Estate!

jrasche2003 I remember seeing this movie as a child, and how it scared me! Well one day I was lucky to find the VHS at a garage sale. Last night I finally put it on to a DVD, where it will never ever wear out.I think Richard Crenna did a great job in this film. I think the film itself was a bit before its time with some of the special effects. The look cheesy compared to todays standards, but for a movie coming out of the 80's it is remarkable.I am really surprised at how little information is out there about this movie, It is one of those small classics that got lost, and I am sure glad that I still have it!