I’m going to lay my cards on the table right at the start. I don’t care what anyone says I like Michael Winner as a director.
We start with a bunch of Catholic priests in Italy and they seem to be very concerned not just about evil in general but about some specific manifestation of evil.
Then the scene shifts to New York. Alison Parker (Cristina Raines) is a successful model. Her lawyer boyfriend Michael (Chris Sarandon) wants to marry her. They’ve been living together for two years. Alison says she needs space. She wants her own apartment.
She is troubled by a bizarre childhood memory. It involves her father, and possibly satanic influences.
She finds a nice apartment. Maybe she should have been suspicious when she found out that such a nice apartment was available for such a low rental but the real estate agent, Miss Logan (Ava Gardner), seems very reassuring.
Some of her new neighbours are a bit odd. Charles Chazen (Burgess Meredith) is a crazy old guy who lives with his cat and his parakeet but he’s very sweet and very friendly.
The two lesbians are more worrying. And the twins. Even fact all of the neighbours are worrying in various ways.
The noises from upstairs are disturbing.
Alison really starts to worry after she asks Miss Logan about the neighbours.
We might wonder a bit about that disturbing childhood memory. Is it a real memory? Could it be a false memory? Or just a dream? Or even a demonically inspired dream? Or is she remembering things that she misinterpreted at the time?
This is a “supernatural evil in the modern world” movie. But this is one of those movies that may or may not be actually about supernatural horror. Everything we see could have non-supernatural explanations. Somebody could be gaslighting Alison. Or Alison may in fact be crazy. That’s a possibility that will occur to us, and it occurs to Alison as well.
Alison goes to investigate those noises upstairs and she thinks she kills an old man. It might be her father. But her father died several weeks earlier. And the only blood the police find is Alison’s blood.
Detective Gatz (Eli Wallach) is worried by several things, principally by a case a few years earlier. A case that could have a link to these recent events.
Winner cleverly keeps things mysterious. He offers us nothing substantial that would back any of the theories we might have come up with to explain what is going on. He slowly builds an atmosphere of menace and paranoia but keeps it vague, which of course makes it all the more unsettling.
Alison is a really nice girl. She might be a really nice sane girl, or a really mad girl. Other characters are ambiguous as well.
And there’s still that niggling suspicion that supernatural evil might be at work.
I’m being deliberately very vague because I think this is a movie you’ll appreciate a lot more if you go into it not knowing what kind of movie it’s going to turn out to be.
Burgess Meredith gives the most memorable performance but all the cast members are fine. John Carradine is quite something as well. Cristina Raines and Chris Sarandon are effectively ambiguous. Look out for Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum in small roles.
The unease mounts remorselessly. The ending really is worth the wait. This is a movie that delivers the goods. Highly recommended.
The Universal Blu-Ray is barebones but looks good.
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