Good Against Evil (DVD)

Good Against Evil is a 1977 TV film directed by Paul Wendkos who directed a lot of TV programs.

The beginning of this film I liked. A dark figure is walking down and alley at night and a black cat is walking parallel along window sills of a building. It comes to a window of a woman in a disturbed sleep. She starts to run around the hospital (waving her arms and shouting Attica) looking for her baby but is stopped from seeing it by ...
...the first story was quite good and the film End of Days seems to have taken a lot from it. I wouldn't really recommend it as there is no real point to this film as the necessary follow on series was never made but it's not all that bad.

One thing I did notice, if anyone read my Don't go into the Attic review you may remember that I said that the DVD cover was a lot of rubbish and not taken from anything ion the film, well there is ... more

Good Against Evil is a 1977 TV film directed by Paul Wendkos who directed a lot of TV programs.

The beginning of this film I liked. A dark figure is walking down and alley at night and a black cat is walking parallel along window sills of a building. It comes to a window of a woman in a disturbed sleep. She starts to run around the hospital (waving her arms and shouting Attica) looking for her baby but is stopped from seeing it by a nun with this kick ass hat. Seriously I wish they had those things in crackers instead of those stupid crowns. This sequence is really well directed and it really does look like a nightmare and I was really impressed and started to expect a lot from this film. He did do that thing were directors film a person with the camera at a 45 degree angle as if this angle imbues dread but I don't like it.

The hospital seems to have this weird ballroom area where a whole lot of people are having a rather formal looking party. The guy from the alley is here again and is something of a leader. He has one of those Christopher Plummer/Clint Eastwood in Dirt Harry haircuts which I want to know the name of. It's like not pompadour but the next logical stage in hair evolution. Pompadour to that to upright hair. Seriously though devil worshippers and the devil himself as depicted in films are always very Presbyterian looking. You never see the devil wearing a pair of jeans. It's always nice suit, neat hair and hands behind the back. There is a bit where he looks exactly like Rik Mayall during the Bottom years (I've included a picture). The nun brings them the baby and they say they will protect it etc.

It's now 1977 in the film, I'm not sure what it was earlier but you are given the impression that this rather attractive woman we are now watching is the baby all grown up. She is a very successful fashion designer who is said to be extremely lucky. Not so lucky that her car is immune to being crashed into by DACK RAMBO. What a name, I wish my name was DACK RAMBO but oh no. His name was Andy Stuart in the film but if I was making it I would let him keep his original name, that being DACK RAMBO. Dack is this charming character who because he has no insurance personally calls in some favours to have Jessica's (the woman's) car fixed and cleaned. He then tries hard to get her to go out with him and she finally gives in. But she is cautious, every man who has ever got close to her has died. When she's with Dack strange things start to happen around her mostly involving cats and unknown to them they are constantly being watched by her protectors. It turns out that she must be kept a virgin and these devil worshipper people are on a mission to ensure as much. Which is weird really, I would have thought Satan would have been against the whole virginity thing and much more up for the whole whore of Babylon playing field. A priest starts to notice weird things around Jessica and warns Dack who says something like "I don't want to hear about your stupid superstitions father I don't believe any of it now will you marry is or not" which seems like something of a contradiction. Anyway things come to a head when they go horse riding and a horse gets scared of a cat and kills a man in its terror. Jessica leaves Dack for his safety and Dack goes and finds his old girlfriend whose daughter is possessed.

I don't know what to think of this film. For a start the bloody film doesn't end. I looked it up on IMBd and found out it was meant to be continued as a series but the series was never made. So at the end of the film nothing is really concluded. Cats seems to be a major motif on the devil worshipping sign which makes me wonder about my cat obsessed sister. The part were it scares a horse was a bit silly. I mean a horse vs. a cat. People too seemed to be rather too scared of these cats for my liking. Now I like cats but push comes to shove I will kick a cat and if I kicked a cat it would now all about it. They're at perfect kicking height what was everyone's problem? In the horse scene the horse kicked everyone but the bloody cat. There was one scene where cats were attacking this woman and I think those cats were being thrown at her, they seriously looked as if they were being thrown. Also when this woman was attacked and killed by these cats why didn't she turn into catwoman?

After the initial great directing of nightmarish beginning the film's directing just became a bit average. The whole love story bit with Jessica and Dack also reminded me a lot of Dallas reruns(which Dack was in) and I didn't really like that a lot of that but otherwise it was alright. Acting was also quite just sort of fine, I did like the guy who played the leader of the devil worshippers though and the two priests were also quite good. Dack looks a lot like Lex Luthor in The New Adventures of Superman don't you think?

The story just completely changed at one point from Dack and Jessica to Dack and possessed girl. The stupid thing was that Dack finds out about possessed girl because the headline of a newspaper on the front page is "Girl in Coma Draws Strange Picture". Why is this rather trivial piece of news from New Orleans front page in San Francisco. New Orleans was a very commonly mentioned place and a lot happens there in the film and that's because New Orleans is a hell hole. A literal hell hole, I was there last year and it was a hole of hell it was that crap. But really back to the point, you can't just change stories in a film.

It was an alright film though despite the fact it never ended and it changed story. The exorcism story was clearly just taken from the film the exorcist and was done anywhere near as well but the first story was quite good and the film End of Days seems to have taken a lot from it. I wouldn't really recommend it as there is no real point to this film as the necessary follow on series was never made but it's not all that bad.

One thing I did notice, if anyone read my Don't go into the Attic review you may remember that I said that the DVD cover was a lot of rubbish and not taken from anything ion the film, well there is a bit in this film that looks a lot like the cover to that DVD (picture included)

Certification

I can't find a certification for this film, I'd say PG personally as apart from rather angry cats there's not much to scare you. No bad language or sex or violence. There is a cover for this DVD on shown on the other version on Ciao and shown on IMBd which has a half naked woman shown from behind wearing only a thong on it which is weird as that really has nothing to do with the film at all. 

...less