Architect Larry Andrews (the always reliable John Saxon) and his new bride Barbara (nicely played by the lovely Lynda Day George) move into a swanky palatial colonial mansion that's haunted by the lethal spirit of evil and vengeful witch Alma Martin (an effectively wicked portrayal by the ravishing Janice Lynde), who not surprisingly possesses Barbara's body so she can reenter our dimension. Director/co-writer Herb Freed manages to create a suitably spooky atmosphere and stages the sporadic supernatural murder set pieces with a reasonable amount of flair (the occasional use of slow motion is especially nifty), but alas the meandering script takes too long to get right down to business, the moderate sprinkling of gore is regrettably tepid stuff, the editing tends to be slapdash, the narrative is sometimes very muddled and incoherent, and , worst of all, the hopelessly cheap and cheesy (far from) special effects are often downright laughable in their jaw-dropping Day-Glo dimestore tackiness. The cast do their best with the blah material: Saxon and George make for appealing and attractive leads, with sturdy support from Michael Dante as smooth heel Del Giorgio, Mario Milano as suave physician Dr. Frank Albanos, and David Opatoshu as helpful faith healer Dr. Solomon. Ken Plotin's pretty cinematography offers several sumptuous shots of the gorgeously scenic sylvan locations. Pino Donaggio provides a supremely eerie and elegant score which gives this rather shoddy picture some much-needed class. A merely passable timewaster.
Review of Beyond Evil
