Supposedly based on a true story, "The Entity" recounts the alleged ordeal of Carla Moran (Hershey), who was consistently being beaten and raped by an unknown entity. After realizing that the professional help by Dr. Sneiderman (Silver), a psychiatrist, was entirely pointless, she turns to parapsychologists for assistance. In the end, they "prove" that she in fact is being pursued by a ghost, and despite their best efforts the film ends by informing us that the real Carla continues to be haunted by this entity.
The film failed me completely on two counts: First and foremost, I flatly refuse to believe in ghosts, demons, witches, and other inventions of the human mind which tries to explain phenomena that it cannot or does not want to understand. Unfortunately, even in the 21st century, many people are all too ready to believe things that defy any kind of logic, instead of trying to reconstruct what has really happened in terms of reason; if they did, they would realize that all those "paranormal" events are either fakes fabricated by people, or things that have a simple, natural explanation. I do not know the real Ms. Moran and what has happened to her, but I am almost certain that if she truly had such a bad experience, it could definitely be explained in more prosaic and mundane terms. Likewise, if the film kept open the possibility of a more natural interpretation of events, it would be much more appealing than the way it was presented in which it wanted us to believe that all this was about a ghost with wild urges...
The second reason for which the film could not get a pass grade, is that the way the story is presented is rather boring. The focus is continuously kept on the entity's nearly identical attacks to Carla, for the most part of the movie; it would be much more interesting for the viewer if the script-writer and director allocated more time in other themes, such as the investigation of what is really happening. This theme appears only in the very last part of the film, and even then it leaves the viewer largely disappointed.
Despite the above grave shortcomings, I would count Barbara Hershey's decent performance on the plus side of the movie. The rest of the cast delivers an average performance.
Finally, the fact that the effects are rather poor can be explained largely the release date of the film (1981).
The film could do better, but it didn't. 4/10.
The film failed me completely on two counts: First and foremost, I flatly refuse to believe in ghosts, demons, witches, and other inventions of the human mind which tries to explain phenomena that it cannot or does not want to understand. Unfortunately, even in the 21st century, many people are all too ready to believe things that defy any kind of logic, instead of trying to reconstruct what has really happened in terms of reason; if they did, they would realize that all those "paranormal" events are either fakes fabricated by people, or things that have a simple, natural explanation. I do not know the real Ms. Moran and what has happened to her, but I am almost certain that if she truly had such a bad experience, it could definitely be explained in more prosaic and mundane terms. Likewise, if the film kept open the possibility of a more natural interpretation of events, it would be much more appealing than the way it was presented in which it wanted us to believe that all this was about a ghost with wild urges...
The second reason for which the film could not get a pass grade, is that the way the story is presented is rather boring. The focus is continuously kept on the entity's nearly identical attacks to Carla, for the most part of the movie; it would be much more interesting for the viewer if the script-writer and director allocated more time in other themes, such as the investigation of what is really happening. This theme appears only in the very last part of the film, and even then it leaves the viewer largely disappointed.
Despite the above grave shortcomings, I would count Barbara Hershey's decent performance on the plus side of the movie. The rest of the cast delivers an average performance.
Finally, the fact that the effects are rather poor can be explained largely the release date of the film (1981).
The film could do better, but it didn't. 4/10.