{"id":2439,"date":"2011-03-03T15:55:01","date_gmt":"2011-03-03T20:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2439"},"modified":"2011-03-08T18:40:53","modified_gmt":"2011-03-08T23:40:53","slug":"something-evil-1972","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2439","title":{"rendered":"Film: Something Evil (1972)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Return to: <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\">Home <\/a>\/\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?page_id=6\">Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?page_id=633\">S<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/BLANK.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2441\" title=\"BLANK\" src=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/BLANK.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"72\" height=\"101\" \/><\/a>Film: Good \/ DVD Transfer: n\/a\/ DVD Extras: n\/a<\/p>\n<p>Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a \/\u00a0Released: n\/a<\/p>\n<p>Genre: TV movie \/ Supernatural Horror<\/p>\n<p>Synopsis: A family moves to a country farm and slowly realize their home and maybe a family member might be possessed by a demonic spirit.<\/p>\n<p>Special Features: n\/a<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Review:<\/p>\n<p>After making his formal debut with the short film <strong>Amblin\u2019<\/strong> (1968), Steven Spielberg directed a number of TV episodes before graduating to  feature length projects, starting with <strong>Duel<\/strong> in 1971, and  following up with <strong>Something Evil<\/strong> (1972), and  <strong>Savage<\/strong>, a 1973 pilot for an unsold series. Only  <strong>Duel<\/strong> has received the most media attention over the passing  years (and rightly so, for the tight direction is superb), whereas the other  teleplays have tumbled to the margins as lesser efforts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Something Evil<\/strong> actually has a solid premise: a New York City  ad man moves his family to a serene countryside farmhouse two hours from the  city. When his wife Marjorie hears strange noises (an invisible crying baby) and  sees weird glowing red goo in mason jars after the midnight hour, she consults  with a neighbour who shares a huge interest in the occult.<\/p>\n<p>Marjorie quickly concludes her homestead <em>must<\/em> be inhabited by a  devil \u2013 a summation that\u2019s confirmed when a visiting couple are killed on their  way home after leaving a party.\u00a0 (Among the partygoers, future  <strong>Jaws<\/strong>\u2019 screenwriter Carl Gottlieb can be glimpsed.)<\/p>\n<p>Robert Clouse\u2019s script has cleanly defined characters and some smart, sharp  dialogue \u2013 elements that undoubtedly inspired Spielberg to have fun creating  occult madness out of a small budget \u2013 but the length of the teleplay ultimately  lead the filmmakers to rush through scenes, which is why the finale comes fast  and hard, and certain characters disappear from the story and pop up with  bizarre abruptness.<\/p>\n<p>Sandy Dennis (<strong>Who\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?<\/strong>) gives mother  Marjorie far more gravitas than one would expect, and she\u2019s utterly believable  as a mom who fears for her children\u2019s safety, eventually tackling the demon  face-to-face in the teleplay\u2019s finale. Clouse\u2019s script has her all  craft-oriented, and her art manifests itself into little protective amulets and  a painted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/search?sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=pentagle\" target=\"window\">pentacle<\/a> in the kids\u2019 room that was originally done in jest,  but proves quite handy in the finale.<\/p>\n<p>Darren McGavin is stuck playing cynical father Paul, a busy ad man. He\u2019s  essentially the family\u2019s non-believer who rushes home whenever Marjorie whines  about more weirdness he\u2019s yet to witness.<\/p>\n<p>Ralph Bellamy is initially important as the occult fan who gives Marjorie the  materials to defend herself, but his disappearance at the end is very clunky. It  is amusing, though, to see him in another occult story, having played the evil  Dr. Sapirstein who supervises the pregnancy and birth of the Devil\u2019s child in  <strong>Rosemary\u2019s Baby<\/strong> (1968).<\/p>\n<p>Bellamy\u2019s aided by a nephew (played by John Rubinstein) who has no other  purpose in the drama except to tell Marjorie \u2018My uncle\u2019s missing\u2019 and \u2018Had you  not moved here, he\u2019d be fine. Damn you!\u2019 He\u2019s the most pointless character in  the teleplay, and one can only assume he had a slightly meatier role before it  was distilled into bit scenes in order to keep the running time locked at 73  mins \u2013 the standard length for a TV movie in a 90 mins. time slot.<\/p>\n<p>The same can be said of the weird farmer (Jeff Corey) next door who similarly  disappears from the story after Paul tells him to stop whirling sacrificial  chickens on their lawn. His sudden reappearance at the end is neither a surprise  nor necessary, but he does tell Marjorie whom the Devil now possesses. With less  than 5 mins. left in the teleplay, the grand battle is over after some hugs,  tugs, and motherly love.<\/p>\n<p>Within Spielberg\u2019s canon, <strong>Something Evil<\/strong> is notable for the  first appearance of the nuclear family unit moving into an idyllic home, only to  find their values threatened by a demonic force that only Love can conquer. (As  Bellamy quips to Marjorie, \u2018sometimes love is the strongest element.\u2019)<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019ve a blonde toddler daughter and rambunctious son (<strong>Family  Affair<\/strong>\u2019s Johnny Whitaker), but the son never seems to be at school in  the daytime, so the presumption is mom must be a crafty hippy who balances home  schooling with clay projects and tacky kitchen mobiles. In <strong>Poltergeist<\/strong>,  the family unit stays within the idyllic suburban landscape, but the mother\u2019s  success in retrieving her child from the demons is similarly dependent on a  grand declaration of love.<\/p>\n<p>Visually, <strong>Something Evil<\/strong> is very striking, and with Bill  Butler (<strong>Jaws<\/strong>) behind the camera, Spielberg creates a rich blend  of close-ups, montages, dissolves, and low angle, menacing angles that would  dominate his visual style in feature films.<\/p>\n<p>Wladimir Selinsky\u2019s score is a bit overbearing at times, but one can  attribute its periodic monotony to cues being stretched and repeated.<\/p>\n<p>After his trio of feature-length teleplays, Spielberg finally moved into  theatrical films with <strong>The Sugarland Express<\/strong> (1974), followed by  <strong>Jaws<\/strong> (1974). Screenwriter Clouse also stepped away from TV and  graduated to film directing, starting with the classic Bruce Lee film  <strong>Enter the Dragon<\/strong> (1973).<\/p>\n<p>Actress Margaret Avery has a tiny role as a voice dubbing artist, and would  later co-star in Spielberg\u2019s <strong>The Color  Purple<\/strong> (1985), playing the juke joint chanteuse Shug, and earning  an Oscar Nomination.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Related links:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>DVD \/ Film: \u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2416\">Color Purple, The<\/a><\/strong> (1985) &#8212; <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=1208\">Poltergeist <\/a><\/strong>(1982)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0069298\/\">IMDB <\/a> &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/soundtrackcollector.com\/catalog\/composerdetail.php?composerid=2209\">Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><em><em><strong>Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\">Home <\/a>\/\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?page_id=6\">Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em><\/em><\/em>\/\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?page_id=633\">S<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ S . Film: Good \/ DVD Transfer: n\/a\/ DVD Extras: n\/a Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a \/\u00a0Released: n\/a Genre: TV movie \/ Supernatural Horror Synopsis: A family moves to a country farm and slowly realize their home and maybe a family member might be possessed by a demonic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[117,108],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-Dl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2439"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2468,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439\/revisions\/2468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}