Just perfect...

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This turned out to be a slow paced, tension filled thriller, in the old timey meaning.Feeling of menace, oppression and deliberate pacing. Filming location adds much to the film. You get that old south, small town, outsiders need not apply feeling. The smiles and welcomes are all fake.Plus the old cars. If you're a fan of cars from the later 20s to early 40s there here aplenty.The acting is good. I would say this was probably made for TV and if it wasn't, it was just a couple of years shy of bring TV fare. In some ways it reminded me of the 1970 Bloody Mama about Ma Barker and her gangs crime spree (with a young Robert De Niro.Flashbacks aplenty to show the history of the house and what happens to the occupants over the years.I would recommend it except for the most faint of heart. Also, there is one scene that some may feel triggered by.

Ben Watkins (a solid and likable performance by Michael Parks) and his wife Ruth (winningly played by the lovely Jessica Harper) move into a creepy old house in a small Louisiana town. They find out that said abode has a violent history attached to it. Director Charles B. Pierce, who also co-wrote the engrossing script with Garry Rusoff and Paul Fisk, relates the compelling story at a steady pace, presents a flavorsome evocation of the 1940's period setting, offers a strong feeling of the rural region and its people, builds a good deal of tension, stages the shock set pieces with aplomb, grounds the plot in a believably sleepy everyday rustic milieu, and delivers a couple of neat surprise twists at the end. The sound acting by the capable cast keeps this picture humming: Parks and Harper make for appealing leads, with fine support from Vic Morrow as friendly, yet shifty real estate agent Jake Rudd and Sue Ane Langdon as pleasant and chipper crippled neighbor Olie Gibson. Familiar character actors Bill Thurman, Dennis Fimple, and Jimmy Clem pop up in cool minor roles. Chuck Bryant's handsome widescreen cinematography boasts lots of gorgeous sepia-tinged black and white for the flashback scenes. Jamie Mendoza-Nava's spirited shivery score hits the stirring shuddery spot. Worthwhile fright fare.

A small thriller set in the 1940s courtesy of Charles B. Pierce. Jessica Harper & Michael Parks move into a house that turns out to have a very sordid past. Murders, suicides, etc. have occurred and there's more to come. Not the scariest of films, there is plenty of suspense and Pierce is not slow to get things going. Harper & Parks make an odd pair, both are so quirky it's hard to take them seriously as young marrieds. Sue Ane Langdon is a "kindly" neighbor and Vic Morrow is a real estate broker (buy NOTHING from him). The art direction and costumes capture the feel for rural Louisiana circa 1945 and the music by Jaime Mendoza-Nava is very unsettling. A mostly effective shocker.

As horror films go, THE EVICTORS is slightly above the usual stuff that was released back then. The acting and production values are good. The cinematography is gorgeous. The Vestron VHS tape I watched had the film in an uncompressed anamorphic transfer. Everything looked squished but my TV has a 16x9 option and when I activated it, the VHS image was widescreen and beautiful. I loved the sepia toned scenes (they are flashbacks). They give the film a distinctive quality. The film's biggest weakness is the story. It sorta comes into its own by the end of the film but even so it's still pretty weak.The story is about a couple who are terrorized by a mysterious man who lurks around a house they recently moved in, a house with a long history of suspicious violent deaths. The wife (played by the wonderful Jessica Harper) is repeatedly terrorized by the lurker when the husband is away. This storyline works on a certain level but the character who plays the lurker/murderer is no Michael or Jason. That aspect of the story was severely underwritten and when the revelation of who this lurker is and why he's terrorizing the couple, what gloomy & mysterious atmosphere the film so meticulously created vanished in a blink of an eye. But the revelation is not bad enough to destroy the whole film. It's just too corny, too a la Scooby Doo.The other annoying thing about this film is the pacing. It's a tad slow going. The action eventually picks up in the second half but the first half was very casual.Even with all its faults, I still enjoyed THE EVICTORS. It's a gorgeous looking horror film and there's Jessica Harper, which always makes anything worth watching.