Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Any success is based on a defeat. It's impossible for something to succeed without something else having failed. In light of this, it's a success that becomes a failure that's the same as a defeat that becomes a failure - a failure becomes a failure. In the abstract, a failure is when something doesn't meet an expectation - in The Entity, to not meet an expectation becomes to not meet an expectation. To not meet an expectation is to not conduct a physical interaction; failing to conduct an interaction is failing to be an interaction.Failing to be an interaction is failing to be an interaction: the intended interaction is the inability to interact. The very inability to socialise is the intended outcome. Reality wants itself to not socialise. The objective, of reality, is for interaction to not come to be. However, interactions are taking place anyway. The objective is alienation, hostility, and the mistreatment of the objective is kindness and hospitality. An objective is something that has to be created, so in this case, reality needs to create alienation and hostility. The creators can't be alienation and hostility, since that's what's been created. The objective is mistreatment. Creating the mistreatment is mistreatment. The objective is intended mistreatment. Letting the objective happen is unintentional mistreatment. Accidental violence creates intended violence.Intended violence is violence that's created - intended violence is a creator. Intended violence is meant to lack self-awareness. It can't however, because its identity has preceded it. Intended violence is the same as unconscious balance - balance that can't react to itself. Because the balance is technically before when it's supposed to exist, the unconscious balance turns into intended violence - demonic malevolence.The Entity, directed by Sidney J. Furie, is a story about demonic activity being a metaphor for when the ideal balance is forced to become evil and malevolent as a reaction to its own nature being a copy of something else.An ideal balance, is a balance that can't react. The total inability to move is the ideal state. However, what can make things all screwed up is when the balance itself understands itself as a type of incapacity. So in essence, if a balance is able to perceive itself as an "inability", it's fair and justice that the balance should lash out at something outside of it. In The Entity, Carla Moran is a victim, but so is the entity. The entity isn't a demon, but, it is actually just a reality that's been mistreated by having to understand itself as a captive, or as a prisoner. The entity is part of a dimension that's nowhere near as free as the reality that Carla is part of. Carla's reality is complete physical freedom. The problem, that makes The Entity a flawed piece of film-making is that the story fails to illustrate this self-awareness. The writers and the director must have been aware of the ulterior truth to the entity, and why it was attacking Carla (it makes no difference that the story is allegedly based on a true story), and yet the script fails to make proper reference of the possibility that the entity is trapped and needs help. To reiterate: the writers of The Entity must have been aware, of the metaphor to do with ideal balance and the metaphor to do with feeling abused due to the feeling of getting the short end of the stick. So why on earth didn't they make an effort to include this dimension?

"So the ghost rapist movie was actually pretty good," said I to my wife in such a way like I'd say I had a good day at the office.What was so captivating, if that's the word to use, about The Entity is that it's an almost philosophical examination of fantasy vs reality, of which side is going to appeal to someone, and usually that is either based on the evidence presented to the person, or simply how that person sees the world concretely. At the same time it's also Poltergeist for adults; yes, there's nudity (maybe, arguably, at one point the sort that might be enticing for people looking), but mostly it's presented in a way that is meant to be shocking. This is about rape and the reaction that people have to it - by 'people' I mean, mostly, men and how they can possibly fathom it... which is to say, at least for some, 'hey, she was asking for it, or she brought it on herself.' I mean, come on, Barbara Hershey wearing those revealing clothes at night like, you know, most people wear to bed! So salacious! This is a film that has that philosophical/sort of psychological angle about who is clinging to reality (i.e. Ron Silver) and who isn't (the para-psychologists), but how that gets tossed on its head. Of course one expects the sort of formula that, more or less, Poltergeist the same year helped to mount (and to another extent The Exorcist 10 years prior): a person/family keeps getting attacked by a supernatural entity, science or the law is called in first, they're no help (or the people/person don't want that kind of help), and then it's time to turn to the realm of the unexplained: priests and/or the kinds of doctors that come in and say things like, "Back off, man, I'm a scientist" when asked a question.Kidding aside, this is a disturbing movie to watch, as it should be. This 'entity' continually rapes and violates the Hershey character, and it's even to the point where this ghost or whatever is in such a don't-give-a-f*** mode that he does this in front of her kids (there's an interesting moment between the son, who believes this thing is real, and Silver who is never convinced even by the end, about this split in what this thing is). When the first time it happens, director Sidney J Furie lays on the soundtrack a little thick - there's a pulse-pounding, almost rock chord struck over and over again, not unlike a chord that was used in The Shining but more fierce, too over-bearing - but eventually it lines up with how we're meant to try and possibly be in her position: what to do when there IS a thing that is coming for you, and nevermind if you're in the house or not, it'll kill you in you in a car or wherever, and there's someone passionately, pleadingly, trying to bring rationality into it.Furie said in an interview he doesn't consider this a horror movie. Is this the sort of answer a director with some loftier intention might give (not saying he's pretentious, just that he thinks it's more than a genre movie), or is there more to it? I think there is; there are some terrifying set pieces, and one involving Hershey's boyfriend played by Alex Rocco that is rather mortifying (both for what is happening to Hershey and Rocco's response afterwards). And every character is presented as a rational adult, there's little room for the sort of hacky bull that one sees in supernatural-ghost-possession-etc horror movies that flood cineplexes today. Furie has some stylistic tics as a director that get overused - the split diopter is fine, but eventually he makes De Palma look sparse in his use of it by comparison - and it's fair to criticize how many of the attacks (and the rapes) are repetitive. Perhaps that's the point though, that such a monster would continue the same path over and over.But what about all of this from a feminist angle? Is there one? I thought more than a few times about the distinction the script makes, if it does at all, between the violating of her mind and the violating of her body - is it one and the same if Dr. Sneiderman is probing for the deeper problems in Carla's past as if she is already getting, uh, probed elsewhere? Ultimately this is her story, and while the very end (which I won't reveal) is rather bittersweet, it is an ending that makes it interesting how much isn't resolved, mostly in her mind, and this is whether or not Furie intended this. Near the end Hershey's Carla Moran has that declarative moment that's meant to be inspiring, or reach some catharsis: "You can kill me, but you'll never have me." Woman, hear me roar? Or the final gasp of someone who has been pushed around by a total creep, as well as being pushed around by others not believing her (i.e. not believing a rape victim)? Either way, it's an effective movie that gets better as it goes along and poses deeper underlying questions, regardless of some of its over-used theatrics.

THE ENTITY might well be the most disturbing ghost story ever filmed. Supposedly based on true events, this tells of a suburban mother who finds herself of the victim of a malignant ghost who rapes her – over and over again. I've always hated watching rape scenes in films and there are loads here, all of them utterly disturbing, with terrifying special effects of a woman being groped by invisible fingers. The banging music on the soundtrack always signals the arrival of the evil spirit and these scenes are truly nerve-shattering.Otherwise what we have is a fairly traditionally-plotted supernatural horror film. It starts off fairly quietly, with the heroine disbelieved by her shrink, but gradually the events increase in scope and ferocity and before long paranormal investigators get involved. The film works best in the first half, with a good level of realism before special effects kick in and it all gets a bit like POLTERGEIST (although never quite as over the top as that film). Barbara Hershey is the kind of actress who can really sell her role in this film, putting in a fraught performance packed with fear, emotion and courage. Ron Silver is also naturally charismatic as the shrink who refuses to believe what's really happening to his patient.I'd seen this film once long ago and had totally forgotten the ending, which involves a scientific experiment on a huge scale. Despite some slightly shoddy effects work I really like the concept of this climax and the way science is used to combat the entity, rather than bringing in the usual cliché of the exorcism. Is this a decent, well-made film? I'd have to say yes. It's only the fact that the supernatural rape scenes, packed full of gratuitous nudity, are pretty distasteful that stop me giving this movie a higher rating. I just can't enjoy a film with such repulsive subject matter, even if it is chilling and disturbing with it. Incredibly, a Bollywood remake was made in 2003 entitled HAWA!

(56%) An effective supernatural horror flick with a strong central performance from Barbara Hershey, as well as decent production values, and capable support. The movie is a lot more rape focused than I was expecting, and this has even more of it than some of the nastier exploitation movies. But with the attacker being an invisible ghost, as well as the story being based on "real" events this didn't fall foul of the censors or the general public. At just over two hours long this really could have done with a trim to get it down to 90 mins, but as a fairly well made, spooky, and quite hard hitting horror that is still watchable today this isn't too bad at all.