A husband and wife who are both doctors buy a mansion to turn it into a drug rehabilitation centre. Unfortunately, it contains a gateway to hell.

What a bad investment. But, seeing an apparition when you’re viewing a property is a red flag in any one’s book. Except Yvette Fielding, possibly.

The Evil is a haunted house movie that is actually very well done, genuinely unnerving and a lot more graphic than other such films.

I loved how realistic the kinetic scenes of unseen forces throwing the characters around were. Also check out the scene in which the force suddenly rips off one female’s characters clothes. I thought the film was steering into the truly disturbing territory of the film The Entity for a moment.

Also, check out the scene in which Richard Creena removes the object holding the gateway sealed (a crucifix- another red flag. Have these people never seen a haunted house film before?!) and it brings a shitstorm of paranormal activity (that would make a great name for a horror franchise) onto all of the characters.

The scene in which a character starts to cut through his hand with a buzzsaw must have sealed the film’s fate as a Video Nasty. It’s a great scene.

And then we get the ending in which the couple meet, erm, Satan! There’s horns involved but he’s also wearing white in a totally white room. Who knew?

The Evil could be a giallo film directed by Lucio Fulci if it was made in Italy. He’d probably make the ending more of a downer though.

All in all, The Evil feels like a film you’d really appreciate finding if you were flicking through channels late at night. Or a horror film shown late at night on UK TV in the early 80’s (but with the buzzsaw scene cut out, obviously). It typifies a genre and era which I’m extremely fond of.

4 out of 5 stars