Stuart Rosenberg directs James Brolin, Margot Kidder and Rod Steiger in the allegedly true tale of a demonic house.

Ugh! It is easy to to say this is a really, really bad film. The 60’s New Wave style direction from Cool Hand Luke’s Rosenberg deflates any reality, the sheer frequency and repetitiveness of the nasty, escalating incidents makes you feel like you are trapped on ghost train on an endless loop with the same scares coming a bit faster, a bit closer and bit louder with every circuit. No tension or unease is ever really built while watching, it all just happens so fast and so uninspired. Both Rod Steiger’s ham boning take on a priest and James Brolin epic perm feel like they are starring in their own seperated movies accidentally spliced into the narrative here. Really it’s the kind of OTT, dated endeavour that would have cool kids at The Prince Charles Cinema hooting and guffawing with glee at every frame, whether silly or not. Yet I’m not going to give it the lowest of scores. I’m pretty sure this is the first horror film I saw, late on telly one night, but nostalgia is not guiding my mercy here. Here’s my three point defence. 1) Margot Kidder is lovely as always and gets a good bulk of screentime here. She is such a refreshing presence in any film I just feel it is a shame her career went off the rails. 2) James Brolin’s performance is something else. Hard to say whether it is terrible or inspired. Like Nicholas Cage at his best, no one else in the ensemble can really synchronise with what he is doing, you certainly couldn’t accuse him of phoning it in. 3) While I arrogantly chuckled away at the unrelenting daftness of it all, after going to bed moments and images lingered creepily. What was ineffective during, had some lasting power after. And that can’t be discounted.

5