Reaper-of-Souls I want to start by saying I love 70s Made-For-TV horror films. Since I was born in 1975, I didn't get to see all these cool movies until much later in life. Some are fairly easy to come by, while a lot more are not so easy to find and have become quite rare, which is a shame because they don't make TV movies like that anymore.After some digging around, I finally managed to get myself a copy of this early Steven Spielberg supernatural thriller. Being a fan of Mr. Spielberg and having already watched some of his earlier works, such as DUEL, JAWS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, and his NIGHT GALLERY segments, I must say that I was expecting better. Not that this is a bad movie, because it's not. And I certainly don't regret the time spent watching it, which was only 73 minutes - so it has a good pace to it and never gets bogged down with any boring filler like so many films of this nature tend to do.While I can see how it could have been a bit scary back in 1972 when it was aired, it just doesn't hold up so well in that department nowadays. Still, the acting is good and the sound of the baby crying is effective. Overall this is a decent, early 70s Made-For-TV supernatural thriller. A solid 6 in my view.

jwhickman I know that The Possession Of Joel Delany (1972) is often cited as a possible cinematic influence on Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973), but I had never seen this little gem until recently. The finale has little Johnny Whitaker (yes, from Family Affair) possessed by a "devil" yelling weird demonic gibberish in a surprisingly creepy and effective vocal track and attacking his mother (Sandy Dennis) as objects fly around the room. The devil is driven out by the chanting words of love from mom. It's a brief scene that might elicit giggles from some, but it's strange how similar some scenes in The Exorcist would play out nearly two years later.

Coventry I always try to seek out these early 70's made-for-TV horror/thriller because they're often very solid story-driven films with a great atmosphere and magnificent acting performances. "Something Evil" looked like such a fine accomplishment and at first I didn't even realize it was from the hands of Steven Spielberg; now one of the – perhaps even THE – most acclaimed Hollywood directors. "Duel", Spielberg's first venture in the domain of horror expertise was immediately a bona fide masterpiece, so I was even extra enthusiast. Obviously "Something Evil" is a lot less memorable and haunting than "Duel", but it's nevertheless a modest lesson in atmosphere, building suspense and drawing characters the viewer gradually grows to care for. Out picnicking in the remote countryside, a family of four falls in love with an isolated farming estate and they promptly decide to buy it. The caretaker subtly tries to warn them about the strange aura of the house, hence the pentagrams painted on the walls for protection, but the civilized Worden family doesn't believe in superstition. The strange occurrences definitely aren't an exaggeration. During one of the first nights already, Marjorie is woken up by the sound of a baby crying in the barn, but naturally she finds nothing. Her husband Paul rents out the farm to a film crew to shoot candy bar commercials, but several of the trespassers mysteriously disappear in and around the farmhouse. This film is somewhat similar to "Crowhaven Farm", which is for me the prototype of solid and sinister 70's TV-horror. Like that favorite, "Something Evil" is an atmosphere- driven story, with a lot of drivel about higher evil forces and demonic possession. There are a couple of standard plot revelations, like the horrible truth about what overcame the previous tenants, deadly accidents that don't turn out to be accidents after all and the lady of the house behaving herself increasingly suspicious. Familiar stuff, but it still works effectively well.

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.