Of course Steven Spielberg is a very talented filmmaker. He knows perfectly well how to create tension and give you creeps on your spinal cord. He is one of the best. In this one he was helped by exceptional actors. Sandy Dennis is a unique phenomenon, can not be compared to any other, was and remains a great great actress. It's a shame that she died so young! Darren McGavin and Ralph Bellamy are also two very good actors, natural and credible in everything they do and say. It's not one of the greatest movies by Spielberg, the script is very simple, to not say poor, but is very well made. Worth to be seen!

Something Evil (1972)** 1/2 (out of 4) Steven Spielberg film has a wife (Sandy Dennis) talking her husband (Darren McGavin) into buying an old farm house and a short time after that she begins to feel that there's something evil living there with them. This made-for-TV movie came just after the director did DUEL and while it's certainly not in the same league as that movie, the overall effect is pretty good. The biggest problem with the film is easily the screenplay because it really doesn't have anything we haven't already seen from countless haunted/possession films. We basically have the wife playing the victim as she finds herself either being haunted or she's simply going crazy. The formula is pretty much followed from there as we have the husband who doesn't believe her but there's one old man (Ralph Bellamy) who does. The film takes quite a while to get going after a good opening sequence but I will admit that the ending was quite good and the twist in the story is also worth waiting for. The performances are certainly a high mark as both Dennis and McGavin are very good and believable in their parts. Bellamy easily steals the film as the neighbor who knows a lot about demonic possessions. Spielberg's direction certainly helps during the murder/possession scenes and I also liked the way he did the camera-work during these moments. Still, the screenplay just doesn't have enough going for it to where the director could really make something more memorable.

Spielberg's rarely-seen second (and last) made-for-TV movie actually predates two horror milestones: within his own filmography, of course, JAWS (1975) but, (more importantly) relating to genre, THE EXORCIST (1973). Mind you, the child possession here only occurs (sans make-up) at the climax and the exorcism requires nothing stronger than a motherly hug! Incidentally, SOMETHING EVIL also anticipates the recently-viewed (and remade) DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK (1973) which, apart from being similarly-produced for the small-screen, this shares a good many plot points with it: the wife being fond of a country-house which is soon revealed to be 'inhabited' by some sort of malevolent spirit, while the husband is a workaholic who only really witnesses his spouse's breakdown – since he barely comes into contact with the supernatural forces at work. By the way, one could perhaps detect the germ here for Spielberg's subsequent producer-only credit on POLTERGEIST (1982)! The film was surprisingly written by Robert Clouse (who, despite being deaf, would soon prove a leading action director!), with the cast being equally notable: Sandy Dennis (who keeps hearing disembodied baby cries in the night, as well as coming across large jars filled with undisclosed gooey stuff!) and Darren McGavin (a director of TV commercials who decides to shoot one on his new property – only to have his current 'actress' die in a car wreck after a party he organized) as the central couple, Jeff Corey – featured in another TV-sourced title I checked out during this "Halloween Challenge" i.e. CURSE OF THE BLACK WIDOW (1977) – as the superstitious landowner (he is often seen spilling chicken blood all over the soil in an effort to ward off evil) and Ralph Bellamy (basically playing the other side of the coin, as an occult authority, of his memorably restrained devil-worshipping cult leader in ROSEMARY'S BABY {1968}).While we never get to know the history of the place (other than that the previous owner had mysteriously killed himself, as per the pre-credits sequence), that is to say, who or what is behind the eventual possession and why it specifically targets the protagonists' boy, Spielberg demonstrates a lot of his essence here, namely his – for lack of a better word – classical handling of suspense and action but also the home-spun qualities that would be particularly frowned upon by his detractors! In the long run, the film – whose presentation on the copy I watched was extensively window-boxed! – is as well-made and acted as any picture to emerge from this era (a fair number of which have deservedly gone on to acquire cult status over the years, including his own DUEL {1971}), despite not being especially impressive or even memorable.

I always try to seek out these early 70's made-for-TV horror/thriller because they're often very solid story-driven films with a great atmosphere and magnificent acting performances. "Something Evil" looked like such a fine accomplishment and at first I didn't even realize it was from the hands of Steven Spielberg; now one of the – perhaps even THE – most acclaimed Hollywood directors. "Duel", Spielberg's first venture in the domain of horror expertise was immediately a bona fide masterpiece, so I was even extra enthusiast. Obviously "Something Evil" is a lot less memorable and haunting than "Duel", but it's nevertheless a modest lesson in atmosphere, building suspense and drawing characters the viewer gradually grows to care for. Out picnicking in the remote countryside, a family of four falls in love with an isolated farming estate and they promptly decide to buy it. The caretaker subtly tries to warn them about the strange aura of the house, hence the pentagrams painted on the walls for protection, but the civilized Worden family doesn't believe in superstition. The strange occurrences definitely aren't an exaggeration. During one of the first nights already, Marjorie is woken up by the sound of a baby crying in the barn, but naturally she finds nothing. Her husband Paul rents out the farm to a film crew to shoot candy bar commercials, but several of the trespassers mysteriously disappear in and around the farmhouse. This film is somewhat similar to "Crowhaven Farm", which is for me the prototype of solid and sinister 70's TV-horror. Like that favorite, "Something Evil" is an atmosphere- driven story, with a lot of drivel about higher evil forces and demonic possession. There are a couple of standard plot revelations, like the horrible truth about what overcame the previous tenants, deadly accidents that don't turn out to be accidents after all and the lady of the house behaving herself increasingly suspicious. Familiar stuff, but it still works effectively well.