October Horror Challenge 2018 #70: "The Evil (1978)"

I was in the mood for a good, spooky horror movie that didn't even TRY to be funny. My sense of humor is broken this morning.  Anyway, I've been seeing the cover of this movie in video stores for years, but I'd forgotten all about it until I saw it on Amazon this week. I knew I had to finally check it out.

This is a mystery/horror flick about a doctor and his wife who buy an old, supposedly haunted house and plan to turn it into a drug rehabilitation center. Right at the beginning we see that the house doesn't like people hanging around. People in the area wanted to tear the house down, but it's considered a historical landmark, and of course the doctor and his wife (who is also a doctor) don't consider the ghost rumors to be true.

Soon after they move in and start renovating the place though, spooky things start to happen. The wife catches on before the husband does. I guess "logically brained" people who trust science and not what they think of as superstition, have a harder time with supernatural phenomena. Pretty soon though, everyone is screwed and the house traps and starts to torment all of them.

As much as I understand not believing in ghosts, people like the husband really get on my nerves. Ok, ghosts aren't real, fine, ok. But when things start happening, whether ghosts are real or not doesn't matter to me, we need to work together and survive, and slapping and shaking and screaming at people and lecturing everyone? That's going to get your ass kicked, and I don't care if you're my husband. It shouldn't take us almost all dying for you to trust that I'm your wife, I'm not crazy, and if I'm concerned, I'm not just imagining it.

Aside from wanting to punch the husband in the face and throw him off a bridge, I liked most of the other characters. It pissed me off how they kept splitting up, though. Everytime someone is alone they get attacked by a ghost, fuck you if you think I'm going to stay in this bedroom alone. And why does it always take everyone else in the house so long to notice something is wrong when people are screaming and knocking into walls just down the hallway from them? Way to be vigilant,  idiots. I still liked them, though. And the house is really creepy, and the storm makes it even creepier. I wound up liking this movie, in spite of the frustrations and flaws. It was a good little ghost story.