The Entity (1982)

The Entity offers thrills in short staccato bursts and dull science in long bursts. If your thirst is for horror, it will not be slaked. If your taste runs to psychiatry, it will not be satisfied. If your fancy is for films that keep you riveted to your seat, you may find that you need a restraining belt by third-quarter time.

The Entity doesn't emerge quite as one-dimensionally nasty as its synopsis suggests. The film's men are so uniformly creepy, and its heroine so strong and sympathetic, that apart from a couple of unpleasant moments the story often seems less like horror than feminist parable, especially when Hershey (giving a fine performance) is reduced to a laboratory object with her home recreated in the psychology department.

A great performance by Barbara Hershey fails to save this poorly directed tale of the supernatural, which was sold as a fictionalized account of an actual paranormal case history.

The Entity may be the least catchy title in movie history, and for the first tedious hour or so this curiously indecisive account of supernatural sexual intimidation remains in an expedient and exasperating rut: writer Frank DeFelitta and director Sidney Furie seem fixated on the rape scene from Rosemary's Baby. [09 Feb 1983, p.F11]

Hershey isn't bad in the role of the victim; she looks durable and acts like a survivor. And Furie does throw in a couple of nifty scares between the rapes, which are gratuitous and disturbing. The rest of the film is by-the-numbers B-movie thriller. [09 Feb 1983, p.D6]