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A haunted house film is a tough sell. No masked stalker, no creatures that eviscerate and certainly no zombies lurching down those shadowed halls. A single setting, a dark secret, a group of people terrified by something is usually your standard template, and even the best haunted house flick doth not stray from the formula. So the trick is to convince the viewers once you get them inside – something that the low on budget, high on conviction, and seldom talked about The Evil (1978) accomplishes admirably.

Barely distributed in May of ‘78 by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, The Evil was made for $700,000 Us and came and went very quickly. The filmmakers complained about the paltry distribution, but I’m sure Corman turned a profit somewhere down the line – he usually did. So from the modest budget, to the generic sounding title (why not just call it Horror Movie?) to the not exactly topical sub genre,...

Shout Factory has been doing a stellar job with their Roger Corman DVDs as of late. A ton of great classics have been re released to a new audience and with them are some pretty good extras. No one would have blamed them for just putting these titles out in bare bones release but every DVD I’ve watched from the set so far at least has a commentary track, which is something I can’t even say for most new films. Before I even get into the review everyone should just give a round of applause for the effort put into these releases. They truly feel like labors of love, like they were made especially for fans. So with all this awesomeness packed into the DVD what about the films themselves?

The Films:

The Evil starts things off well enough. We have a hapless victim checking out an old...

The Evil (1978)

Directed by: Gus Triskonis

Starring: Richard Crenna, Joanna Pettet, Victor Buono, Andrew Prine and Cassie Yates.

In Gus Trikonis' The Evil, psychologist C.J. Arnold (Richard Crenna) and his wife Caroline (Joanna Pettet) buy a dilapidated mansion with a dark past in the hopes of restoring the estate and turning it into a drug rehabilitation clinic. With the help of some of his students and current patients, the doctor begins work on the mansion - but things take a nasty turn when an ancient spirit starts attacking people. When he opens a secret door in the basement of the house, the psychologist inadvertently releases the malevolent presence...and all hell breaks loose.

In terms of B-Movie ranking, The Evil isn't all that bad. The film takes an admittedly strong stance on the importance of sticking to a more classic ghost story rather than a sleazy, gory filled B-movie romp.