GOOD AGAINST EVIL

US, 1977, 84 minutes, Colour.
Dack Rambo, Elyssa Davalos, Richard Lynch, Dan O' Herlihy.
Directed by Paul Wendkos.

An average telemovie melodrama. It is a derivative of the occult trend of the seventies and is explicit in its similarities to Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist. It does not compare with either of these films. Directed by Paul Wendkos, a veteran of many and varied telemovies, the film is interesting in its way, reflects the attitudes towards the occult of the seventies.

1. An entertaining and interesting telemovie? Its shock impact? The themes of the occult for home audiences? Its presuppositions about audience interest in these themes?

2. The occult trend of the seventies, the conventions of the genre, the number of derivatives? Why? The quality of this production?

3. The title and its expectations, direct indication of themes? The depth of treatment?

4. The heroine and the background to her birth, her guardians and protectors, her special destiny? Her ordinariness at work in San Francisco? Her skills, her ordinary reactions? Her car and her friendship with the young man? The falling in love? Her fears, the strange experiences in her apartment especially with the cat? Her breaking off the intended marriage? The mystery surrounding her? Ordinary enough for audiences to identify with? To be interested in and caring about what happened to her?

5. The young man and the interlude with the car, the dinner invitations, his background as a writer, his love, the strange phenomena especially with the cat? The intended marriage, the discussions of the church, the phenomena in the church and the priest's reaction? His decision to marry in the registry office? The deaths? His pursuit of the girl, his former girl friend and her ill baby in New Orleans, his being lured into the city, his being used?

6. The portrait of the protectors - especially the arch devil and seeing him performing his rituals, his power, his killing of the woman in San Francisco? The use of cats and their occult symbolism? (the overtones of horror films about cats?) The various deaths in San Francisco - the horse-riding, the priest in his church?

7. The transition to New Orleans and the new life for the heroine, the fulfilment of her destiny? The personification of evil and his control of her life? his plans? The overtones of Satan?

8. The girl and her baby and its possession, fears, grief? The hospital sequences, the build-up to the exorcism?

9. The priest as the exorcist type, his investigations, warnings, his obsession? The melodramatics of the performing of the exorcism?

10. Audience response to the visuals of an exorcism, prayer, the casting out of the evil spirit, the phenomena attending this? How credible?

11. The build-up to the climax for the heroine? The inconclusiveness of the ending and its offhand style?

12. A visual exploration for home audiences of superstition, religion? Satan and their presence in the contemporary world?