This hits the mark somewhere between "The Amityville Horror" and "The Omen" as it covers both the evil house and demonic possession themes. Its effectiveness also lies somewhere between the two. There is one particularly great scene when a shadowy figure behind the door is revealed. It blindly walks forward and our hero attacks it, hacking it up and even providing a little eye trauma. The problems lie with whole "gateway to Hell" premise as it's not well represented or maybe more specifically, visualized. There are so many stars in this, even an unbelievably indiscreet self-gratification scene by a young Beverly D'Angelo. For my money, Burgess Meredith knocks it out of the park in this.

Really enjoyable and well made at times. It did have a few dips at the mid point. Some of these lesser interesting scenes could have been way shorter. It did set up for an interesting finish. The end could have been shot better, it seemed rushed or not well thought out. It's certainly one of a kind and worth a watch.

Well done and shot well. Still holds up quite well, and worth a watch. Cristina Raines is stunningly beautiful

For a movie this old, there are a lot of names I recognize (not saying I'M old, mind you; I'm saying THEY are!). Opening scene, I spot a young Jeff Goldblum, and then a few minutes later, there's Burgess Meredith ("Mick" from _Rocky_ for those who don't recognize the name). Further into the movie, there's Jerry Orbach ("Det. Lennie Briscoe" of _Law & Order_) - with black hair, mind you! - and after that, Christopher Walken who looks (in this film) like he's still in college, he's so young. Seriously, I was amazed at how many of these actors/actresses in this 1977 movie that are still around - and still active! - today. (Of course, poor old Jeff Goldblum has pretty much been reduced to selling Apartments.com but hey, he's still kickin'!) As far as the film itself, it's pretty much what you would expect from a 1977 movie, by today's standards. Low-budget, hyperexaggerated acting, bad sets, even worse wardrobes, dialogue, etc. The storyline was simple enough to follow...provided you're willing to watch 70 minutes of an 80-minute movie before learning what the story actually is. (Seriously...they didn't explain what was going on until the final 10 minutes of the movie.) It wasn't a "bad" movie, just very dated (by today's standards) and kind of lame. The ending was good and the makeup and effects - for a 1977 movie - weren't bad. Lots of latex and rubber, of course, but this was years ago, remember. And I _do_ have to give props to the closing scene: it wrapped everything up nicely, no loose ends or wondering what happens, etc. If you're looking for something different and don't mind a film being a little dry and crusty, this one is easy to watch. Just be willing to watch it all the way through until (almost) the end to really understand what's actually going on. It was worth the wait, IMO, just to watch something different.