The Entity *** (1982, Barbara Hershey, Ron Silver, David Labiosa) – Classic Movie Review 8218

Director Sidney J Furie’s underrated 1983 The Entity stars Barbara Hershey as a single-mom psychiatrist called Carla Moran who thinks she is dreaming up the thing – an unseen presence or invisible demon – that is apparently assaulting and raping her. Carla consults parapsychologists, who find she has attracted an evil spiritual force and set out to stop it.

The Entity seems like a deeply dodgy horror film that could be seen as a celebration of rape and degrading women, but, depending on viewpoint, alternatively you could view it as one of the good feminist and sex or gender related movies. It is certainly a well turned-out, sometimes scary shocker. Stephen H Burum’s cinematography, Furie’s direction and the star performance are extremely notable, though it is still a very awkward movie.

Frank De Felitta adapts his own source novel, which was apparently based on a real Los Angeles case.

Also in the cast are Ron Silver as Phil Sneiderman, David Labiosa as Billy, George Coe as Dr Weber, Jacqueline Brookes as Dr Cooley, Margaret Blye as Cindy Nash, Alex Rocco as Jerry Anderson, Richard Brestof as Gene Kraft, Michael Aldredge as George Nash, Raymond Singer as Joe Mehan, Allan Rich, Natasha Ryan, Melanie Gaffin, Sully Boyar, Tom Stern, Curt Lowens, Paula Victor and Lee Wilkof.

De Felitta also wrote the novel Audrey Rose and penned the screenplay for the film version Audrey Rose (1977) and was a producer. He wrote a sequel novel called For Love of Audrey Rose, published in 1982 when The Entity, adapted from De Felitta’s 1978 book, debuted.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8218

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Ron Silver as Phil Sneiderman in The Entity (1982).