mark.waltz A decade in boarding school hasn't made troubled heiress Barbara Parkins forget the brutal rape she suffered as a child. Her now widowed mother (the legendary Barbara Stanwyck) has remarried, but Parkins doesn't like her new stepfather (William Windom), a drunk she suspects was the rapist. With the help of doctor Roddy McDowall, her mother and handyman Arthur O'Connell, Parkins tries to put her past into perspective but the past is far too complicated... Actually extremely convoluted with a string of bizarre twists that might have you shaking your head.There's not just a taste of evil, but a twist of lemon squeezed on the wound. Stanwyck takes the bizarre part and runs with it, even knowing that it's another hag horror. Certainly, she's fantastic looking at 64, with tight smooth skin looking very natural and the white hair her crowning achievement along with that sensational raspy voice. Parkins is the perfect damsel in distress, and O'Connell pulls a few surprises out of his theatrical bag of tricks as well. The plot twists are bizarre and unbelievable but I just dare you to switch it off. Think of this story as the continuation of Stanwyck's "Double Indemnity" character had she lived, close to 30 years older but just as evil as ever.

Coventry In case you want to watch a horror movie for the first time and need to be sure from beforehand that you won't be disappointment with the outcome, it always helps to research the names that are involved. For example, in the case of "A Taste of Evil", I felt pretty comfortable thanks to the involvement of three reliable names (excluding the cast). The film comes from the nearly inexhaustible stable of producer Aaron Spelling. Long before he produced sappy TV- series like "Beverly Hills 90210" and "7th Heaven", Spelling was responsible for a large number of genuinely tense and spine-chilling TV-thrillers, including this one. The man in the director's chair is named John Llewellyn Moxey and his repertoire is also quite astounding, with legendary titles such as "Horror Hotel", "The Night Stalker", "Nightmare in Badham County" and about three dozen of other worthwhile titles. Then, last but certainly not least, the script was penned down by Jimmy Sangster. He was one of the creative masterminds behind the awesome British horror studios Hammer and wrote some of their greatest classics ("Horror of Dracula", "The Curse of Frankenstein") as well as some of their underrated but ingenious gems. How could "A Taste of Evil" possibly go wrong, especially if you also take into consideration that cast features a few impressive names like Barbara Stanwyck, Arthur O'Connell and Roddy McDowall? Well, "A Taste of Evil" certainly doesn't disappoint and I won't hesitate for one second to recommend it to fellow horror fans, but still one of the aforementioned prominent names cheated a little bit… As the story slowly unfolded and tension mounted, I suddenly became more and more conscious that the plot felt familiar. Poor Susan Wilcox returns home to her mother Miriam and the parental house, after she spent seven long years in a Swiss mental hospital to recover from the trauma of getting assaulted in her garden playhouse at the tender age of 13. Although her mother and Susan herself are determined to get her life back on track, Susan's tangled nerves are soon put under pressure again since she repeatedly spots the corpse of Miriam's second husband Harold all around the estate. She must somehow suffer from hallucinations, as Harold is very much alive, although on a business trip and corresponding with his wife and stepdaughter via the phone. Now, where have I seen this plot before? Oh that's right… it's as good as identical to that of the unsung Hammer treasure "Taste of Fear / "Scream of Fear". Sneaky Jimmy Sangster must have thought that nobody in the United States ever saw or even heard about this film that already got released in 1961, so if he changed a few details left and right and gave different names to the main characters, he could cash a quick and easily earned paycheck! And yet, I certainly don't blame Jimmy. The story is still solid as a rock and capable of evoking a handful of genuine scares and mild shocks. The build-up takes quite long and feels overly derivative, because you know of course that somebody is deliberately trying to push Susan into another mental breakdown and that her hallucinations are staged. But then the script offers not one but two twists that are surprisingly effective and quite unconventional for a made-for- TV flick. "A Taste of Evil" touches upon a few sensitive themes, like child molesting and family rivalry, and the extended climax (taking place during a good old-fashioned pouring rain thunderstorm) is action-packed and wild.

Michael_Elliott A Taste of Evil (1971) ** (out of 4) Disappointing made-for-TV movie is pretty much a remake of Hammer's SCREAM OF FEAR. In this film, a young girl is raped and years later she (Barbara Parkins) returns home only to fear that someone is trying to drive her crazy. Her mother (Barbara Stanwyck) is trying to figure out if her daughter is crazy or perhaps there's someone really after her (and especially since the rapist was never caught). A TASTE OF EVIL comes from writer Jimmy Sangster who also wrote the previously mentioned Hammer movie so it's clear that he knew what he was doing. The biggest difference in the two films is that the original was actually quite eerie and that's certainly far from the case here because this entire film is just downright boring and doesn't feature a single character that you really care for. Director John Llewellyn Moxey had previously made THE CITY OF THE DEAD but he doesn't bring any of the same style or beauty to this thing. The entire movie has a very slow pace as if the director wasn't sure what he wanted to do with the material or perhaps he just knew the material wasn't all that good. Parkins is pretty good in the role of the daughter but the screenplay doesn't give her much to do outside of screaming and running around. Stanwyck is always watchable but this here certainly wasn't among her best work. Roddy McDowall was fun to see in his supporting role as was William Windom. Another problem with the film is that there's simply nothing going on that ever really keeps the viewer interested. The story is decent but nothing much is done with it and this is especially true if you've seen the original version, which was one of the best thrillers from the studio.

Oliver Lenhardt The plot of A TASTE OF EVIL is a pastiche of cliches. Stop me if you've heard this before: A young woman, raped as a child and just released after years in a mental institution, comes home only to find herself seeing and hearing things that prove elusive when she summons witnesses. Is she still mentally unfit? Cue heroine waking up to thumping noise, wandering through darkened mansion, finding open window with shutters banging against frame and curtains billowing in gale-force winds. In fact, thunder storms and billowing curtains are repeating motifs in this unimaginative film. Drag in dog-eared scenes involving rustling bushes, haunted voices calling, a dimwitted butler who may or may not have been the girl's rapist, shadowy figures standing in the yard, disappearing corpses, a treacherous relative's inheritance-lust, etc. Even a plot this hackneyed can be revived to a certain extent, but "A Taste of Evil" is just uninspired through-and-through. Director Moxey reused these hoary story elements to better effect a decade later in NO PLACE TO HIDE. Still achingly familiar, at least that film was considerably more suspenseful, and contained one or two surprises."A Taste of Evil" is efficient enough within its very limited aspirations, and Stanwick makes an impression in her role, but the film still several notches below the high standard of numerous made-for-TV suspensers of the seventies.