The Entity

The ghost/haunting horror subgenre is one of very little ingenuity or variety. Ghosts haunt a place, make things fall off walls, frighten people, call in a psychic or something, arrive at some resolution, the end. There are outliers, of course; the all-out assault of Poltergeist, or flipping the perspective to the specter in I Am A Ghost and The Others. The Entity takes a different route: what if the ghost haunts a person, wherever they go? And what if the ghost isn't just doing spooky, haunted-house tropes, but actively physically assaulting the one person, to the point of sexual assault? The Entity uses this (based on a real case of a woman in 1974) as the basis for its story. Barbara Hershey plays Carla, the woman who is victimized by the titular force, and this is absolutely her movie. Her journey mirrors that of so many others who have been the victims of repeated abuse, passing through stages of fear and panic, exhaustion, resignation, and then, after finally hitting that point of overload, arriving at a steely determination to break free. Through it all, she is unwavering to protecting her children, and to finding whatever solution is available to rid herself of the nightmare, even in the face of people doubting her story (because, honestly who would believe "ghost rape" at first blush?). It is on that note that I'd like to commend the movie for eschewing a rather hoary trope of haunting movies: the ghost-disappears-when-there-are-witnesses cliche. The first couple of incidents, Carla is alone, which is fine. She doesn't feel like she can explain it to anybody, so she doesn't. And then the ghost attacks her with her kids around, even injuring her teenage son in the process. And then her friend Cindy witnesses an attack at their apartment. And then two parapsychologists witness an incident, and then are joined by their professor, who witnesses yet another incident. And then her boyfriend sees it. I cannot explain how refreshing it was to have a haunting story where 75% of the movie isn't spent with the ghost conveniently on a cigarette break whenever the haunted person tries to get a witness. It gives The Entity a proper sense of natural escalation, rather than using a series of contrivances so that everything can explode later on. I also want to commend the movie for being unafraid to show the institutional misogyny in the psychiatric community when she tries to get help. Her shrink and the psychiatric board of the university all come to the obvious conclusion of "women be cray-cray", making some wild insinuations about sexual appetites and past trauma that are thoroughly infuriating, but also believable of the time. Hell, probably still believable today. One other aspect of the direction I want to commend is how the movie avoids getting male-gazey. Having an attractive woman like Barbara Hershey starring in a movie about a ghost that commits sexual assault could be, in the wrong hands, a blank check for exploitation. Thankfully, this isn't a parade of nude scenes, and the sexual assaults (there are multiple, so, trigger warning for those whom that will bother) are shown to be exactly what they are: violations. It's never explicit or lurid, focusing usually on tight close-ups of Hershey's face as it happens, making her reaction to it the most important feature. Even when there are nude scenes, there is storyline justification for them, and they're almost entirely done via a body cast so they can pull of some creepy special effects. Those special effects aren't exactly executed well -- the blending of Hershey's neck and the body cast could not be less convincing -- but the idea is skin-crawling. On the downside, though, is the movie's length. At a smidge over two hours, The Entity feels a little too stretched out and, at times, repetitive. And while the climax does have ... action, I guess? ... the ending is undoubtedly going to be divisive. Given that this was based off a real-life case, and it ends the way it did in our world, I'm not mad at it, but it's not a resolution by any stretch. Just a stop. And if you're looking for outright horror, this may not scratch your itch. The Entity is chilling and creepy and disturbing, but it's not scary in the traditional horror movie sense of the word. The Entity is a hard watch, for sure. The subject is going to put some people off, and I don't blame them if they pass on it. But if that's not a barrier to entry, The Entity is a solid ghost story. I doubt it'll blow you away, but it's just different enough from most haunting movies to be worth the experience.