The Entity

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This article is about the 1981 film. For other uses, see Entity (disambiguation).
The Entity

Film poster
Directed by Sidney J. Furie
Produced by Harold Schneider
Written by Frank deFelitta
Starring Barbara Hershey
Ron Silver
David Labiosa
Margaret Blye
Music by Charles Bernstein
Cinematography Stephen H. Burum
Editing by Frank J. Urioste
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date(s) February 4, 1983
Running time 125 min.
Country United States
Language English

The Entity is a horror film starring Barbara Hershey as Carla Moran, a California woman who was tormented by an unseen entity. Despite being filmed and planned for a release in 1981, the movie was not released in worldwide theaters until September 1982 followed by the United States in February 1983.

The film is allegedly based on the life of Doris Bither (Doris Bither's son interview), who claims to continue being assaulted by an invisible being, though with lesser frequency and intensity (more recently it is claimed she no longer suffers from physical attacks, but still experiences the phenomena).

There is also a novel of the same name written by Frank DeFelitta (first published in 1978), which provides a more detailed account of Carla (or Carlotta) Moran's (other possible names Doris Bither or Byther) supposed experiences. The supposed haunting took place in Culver City, California, USA.

Contents

[edit] Plot

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The movie begins as Carla Moran (Barbara Hershey) leaves work and then typing school. Carla arrives home to find the place a mess and lectures her son, Billy. Once she's alone in her room, an unseen powerful force slaps her on the cheek, resulting in a cut lip, and throws her on the bed and rapes her, with a pillow in her face to prevent her from screaming. After the assault ends, Carla screams in terror and tells Billy to search the house. Billy doesn't find anything, and convinces Carla and her daughters, Julie and Kim, that it was Carla had just had a nightmare. Carla bids everyone goodnight again and stays awake reading. Carla's entire bedroom begins to shake, breaking everything. In a panic, Carla runs out of her bedroom and the entity slams the door behind her. Carla and Billy then grab the girls and run out of the house. As they are near the front door, Carla looks over her shoulder to see her bedroom door banging, as the entity apparently destroys the entire room. Carla and her children then leave the house.

Carla, Billy, Julie, and Kim, arrive at the home of Carla's friend Cindy, where they spend the night. The next morning, Carla tells Cindy about the incident in her home, and Cindy suggests that Carla talk to a psychiatrist about it.

After a day trip to the beach, Carla, Billy, Julie, and Kim return to their house to find Carla's bedroom in shambles. They then hear a scraping noise coming from underneath the house, and despite Carla's pleas, Billy crawls under the house to find the source of the noise. Billy discovers that pushing on a pipe makes the noise, leaving the family to wonder who had been touching the pipe. Carla initially plans to spend the night on the living room couch, but changes her mind when Cindy arrives to stay the night. As they go to sleep, Carla's lamp slowly lights up, then slowly fades off again.

The next morning, Carla drives to work, while Cindy babysits Carla's children. Along the way, Carla's car seems to have a mind of its own, and drives erratically through the street and into oncoming traffic, eventually stopping at the edge of a steep hill.

Carla decides to see a psychiatrist, and meets with Dr. Sneiderman (Ron Silver). Dr. Sneiderman and Carla both agree that she might just have erotophobia. Carla goes home, via taxi, and sends Julie to bed. Carla then goes to the bathroom to have a hot bath after a long stressful day. The doors then suddenly slam shut, and the ghost grabs her and pins her everywhere in the bathroom while raping her, seemingly with the help of two smaller beings holding her legs.

The next day, Carla shows Dr. Sneiderman the bruises, bites, and scratch marks made by the ghosts. Dr. Sneiderman is convinced that Carla made the marks herself, despite the fact that she could not reach those areas of her body. Dr. Sneiderman takes Carla home, where Carla tells him about her childhood. We learn that Carla ran away from home because of her hyper-religious, molesting father and met Mario, the spitting image of her son Billy. After she became pregnant, Mario died in a motorcycle accident. Carla then met an older man, who was the father of Julie and Kim.

Dr. Sneiderman leaves and Carla brings some dessert into the living room for Billy, Julie and Kim. Carla is then suddenly raped again in front of all the children, and Billy breaks his wrist as he tries to unsuccessfully save Carla.

Carla meets with the staff of Dr. Sneiderman's university clinic, where she claims that she's being raped. When asked by the staff why she is the only one experiencing these assaults, she concludes it's because she was chosen.

Carla then returns home and reads a book while everyone is asleep. Hours later, Carla has a sexual dream and has an orgasm, but wakes up to find that the ghost had raped her while she was sleeping. Carla destroys her room and yells at Billy.

Carla tells Dr. Sneiderman that she is ashamed of what happened. Sneiderman then orders Carla to commit herself to a hospital for trying to commit suicide with her car. After the argument, Carla storms out. Later, Carla agrees to house-sit for her friend Cindy while Cindy and her husband go to a wedding reception. Once Carla is alone, the ghost starts tearing the house from end to end. Cindy and her husband hear the windows breaking and return to witness the destruction.

The next day, Carla and Cindy go to the library to find books on the supernatural. Carla overhears two scientists discussing paranormal phenomena similar to what she has been experiencing, and tells them about her attacks. Later, Carla gives them a tour of her house and shows them where everything took place. At first, the scientists don't fully believe her, until they witness some mirrors shaking. After setting up some machines and waiting up with Carla, the entity appears, but is weak, and only manifests itself as electric bolts before it disappears. The two scientists show a photo of it to the scientist who heads the parapsychology division of the university. The head scientist is also skeptical, but agrees to set up a study in Carla's house.

The next day, Dr. Sneiderman arrives to see a large amount of people setting up cameras and other materials around Carla's house, and discovers that they are looking for an "entity". Dr. Sneiderman tries to convince Carla that the manifestation is only in her mind, but she dismisses him. That night, after almost giving up, the ghost appears by shooting beams of light around the room, and finally manifests a giant green orb that seems to have the shape of a humanoid figure inside of it. The three scientists conclude that the entity is a being which has crossed over from one of the several planes of existence. Everyone leaves, and Carla's new boyfriend, Jerry, returns from a business trip. Carla tells him about what's been happening, and of course, Jerry doesn't believe her. He asks her to try on a new dress he got for her, but when he comes in to see it, he finds Carla stripped naked and pinned to her bed. Her breasts are being squeezed by invisible hands. She calls out for Jerry's help, but as he tries to save her, he is thrown forcefully to the other side of the room by the entity. He then picks up a chair and tries to hit the unseen being with it, but ends up hitting Carla instead, knocking her unconscious. Billy enters the room at this point, and mistakenly believes that Jerry has attacked Carla, and so attacks Jerry.

At the hospital, Dr. Sneiderman allows Billy, Julie, and Kim to see Carla, while he talks to Jerry about what happened. Jerry decides he can't handle the situation, and that he's leaving Carla forever. The three scientists arrive to see Carla and tell Carla that they have an idea, but that it has never been tried before. Carla is willing to do anything at this point.

In a school gym, the scientists tell students that they are going to try to trap the ghost with liquid helium, theorizing that if the ghost can manipulate objects, it must have physical mass, and therefore it can be frozen. Carla arrives and sees that they have built a mock-up of her house inside the gym, with surveillance cameras everywhere, and no ceilings (except for the bathroom), as well as a protected area that Carla can run to when it comes time to release the liquid helium. Dr. Sneiderman enters the gym and takes Carla to the bathroom area, where he tries get Carla to leave with him, but Carla declines. One of the scientists asks the security guard to escort Dr. Sneiderman out.

Dr. Sneiderman secretly returns later and again tries to get Carla to leave, but the scientists and security guard remove him. Dr. Sneiderman is allowed him to watch the experiment, together with the head of the psychiatry division at the university.

The ghost appears as a cold wind, and Carla tries to move to the protected area, but the ghost is so powerful that it takes control of the helium tanks and attempts to kill Carla. After the protected area is destroyed, Carla faces the ghost, stating it can do whatever it wants to her, but can't take control of her life. In an act of fury, the ghost bursts the helium tanks, and Dr. Sneiderman rushes in to save Carla. As Dr. Sneidermand and Carla look back after escaping, they see the frozen ghost, revealing it was absolutely gigantic in size. The ice suddenly explodes and the ghost seems to disappear. Carla disappears as well. Dr. Sneiderman and the head of psychiatry witness the disappearance, although the head of psychiatry implies that he won't admit what he saw, much to the anger of the parapsychology leader.

The next day, Carla returns to her house, and finds the whole place to be empty. Suddenly, the front door slams, and the ghost (in a deep and slow voice) says "Welcome home, cunt!" Carla calmly opens the front door, exits the house, and gets in the car with her family to leave the house forever.

The film ends, stating that Carla's attacks have decreased in both frequency and intensity, but that she still experiences paranormal activities.

Total box office intake was $13,277,558. The budget is unknown.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Other media

[edit] Reception

Director Martin Scorsese placed The Entity on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Atari 2600 prototype game
  2. ^ "Fox holding 'Grudge' guy to new deal" - Variety
  3. ^ Scorsese, Martin (October 28, 2009). "11 Scariest Horror Movies of All Time". The Daily Beast. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-10-28/martin-scorseses-top-11-horror-films-of-all-time/2/. Retrieved November 15, 2009. 

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entity"