This controversial horror film from a 42-year-old is one of Martin Scorsese’s favorites

Some films are born with an infamous reputation. Sidney J. Furie’s infamous 1982 horror film, The entityis one such film. Without the unwavering support that Martin Scorsese has given this film over the years, there’s a pretty good chance that everyone would have forgotten about it by now.

Largely derided by critics upon its initial release, The entity has since undergone a reappraisal of both its form and its content, which has breathed new life into this film that was previously (at best, retrospectively) replayed. Is The entity the classic horror film that Martin Scorsese believes it to be, or is it little more than a shoddy film that seeks to exploit its subject matter?

What is the entity about?

The outer limits of faith

The entity Barbara Hershey plays Carla Moran, a single mother who horrifically experiences a series of sexual assaults, all apparently committed by a ghost or supernatural phenomenon. After surviving the initial attack, Carla tries to convince others about what is happening to her, but to no avail. Her long-time childhood friend, Cindy (Margaret Blye), doesn’t believe her. This also applies to psychiatrist Phil Sneiderman (Ron Silver), who is convinced that Carla is either lying about the identity of her attacker or suffering from truly epic Freudian guilt.

Eventually, Carla finds a team of paranormal investigators who believe her, and with their help, she sets out to imprison the creature in a replica of her home, built in a university gymnasium. The entity The novel ultimately ends on the note that while Carla has not entirely managed to free herself from what is haunting her, she has at least found a way to prevent it from consuming her by taking power and control over it got her life back.

Something remarkable, The entity is said to be based on a true story. According to the title synopsis at the end of the film, the character of Carla was based on a woman named Doris Bither from Culver City, California. Bither says she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a ghost in her home in 1974. These claims can be corroborated by her four children, who witnessed these horrific attacks on their mother (as happens in the film).

When no one believed her, Blither enlisted the services of parapsychologist Barry Taff, who documented the investigation in his book Aliens above, ghosts below. While Taff witnessed many inexplicable events during the investigation, Doris’ claims were never fully verified.

The entity could have been more faithful to the actual investigation itself, which produced little evidence. Instead, the film took this harrowing event and presented it as fact, suggesting that any horror inflicted on Carla Moran (and by proxy, real-life victim Doris Blither) is 100% real. More than just that, The entity captures these truly horrific events in vivid detail, making this one of the hardest horror films to forget.

What makes The Entity a great horror film?

It asks difficult questions and offers no easy answers

When The entity When the film was released in 1982, it didn’t find many fans, but it did have one big supporter: film director Martin Scorsese. During a conversation with The Daily Beast Decades later, Scorsese described The entity as a “truly frightening image” and one whose “banal shots” emphasize the “unsettling quality” of the film’s tone. All in all, Scorsese believes in it The entity is the fourth scariest film of all time, ranking above even all-time classics Psycho And The shining one.

When one of Hollywood’s most renowned filmmakers defends a film that has been vilified by critics, cinephiles quickly take notice. So what’s it about? The entity Why does it work so well as a horror film? Well, first and foremost, this film is pure, concentrated evil. Objectively speaking, evil exists, but when transported into the horror genre it can take on a world of its own and become something much more subjective.

Director Sidney J. Furie walks the thinnest line of this kind The entity. At no point does the film really suggest that what happens to Carla isn’t real. From the moment she is first attacked in her bedroom in the film’s opening act, it is clear that something invisible is attacking her. As the attacks continue, the audience alongside Carla becomes more and more desperate, knowing that she is not lying. Like her small children, they are witnesses to the horrors she has experienced and do not doubt it for a minute. But everyone else Carla interacts with believes she’s lying (or at least hiding something).

Representing science (and now largely ignored Freudian beliefs) is the figure of Dr. Sneiderman, who insists that what is happening to Carla is merely a projection of the fantasies she refuses to accept. However, the audience knows otherwise. You know without a doubt that this entity is not a subjectively repressed sexual fantasy, but a very real, powerful force that is terrorizing this poor young mother. While this dichotomy once caused critics to distance themselves from it The entity First released in theaters in the 1980s, stories of assault on women have continued to be dismissed ever since, and the film has been re-evaluated as a result.

How has the company been revalued today?

Ghosts are the least of our worries

The entity It’s been a long, hard road to get to where it is today. When it was first released in the UK, the film was met with protests from women’s rights groups who considered it offensive due to its graphic depiction of sexual assault (of which, admittedly, there are many). When star Barbara Hersey was asked to talk about the protests the film encountered, she told a reporter:

“I resent being put in the position of defending the film. We worked really hard not to exploit him. Rape is one of the ugliest, if not the ugliest thing that can happen to someone. It’s a kind of murder. I don’t have an answer for the people who are offended.”

Over four decades later, times have changed. Carla’s attempt to convince others of what she went through is now seen as an allegory of the #MeToo movement. When Carla finally realizes that no one is willing or able to truly help her, she realizes that she must save herself. Instead of allowing this malevolent spirit to maintain its power over her, she makes it clear that she will never let it control her, no matter what this supernatural being does to her. And when it reappears at the very end of the film and utters the film’s now infamous last line, Carla, instead of being afraid, leaves the house and walks away forever.

Of course, much like in real life, we don’t know for sure if Carla is truly safe. These attacks may recur once she has reached her next destination (as Doris Blither is said to have done for most of the rest of her life). But the film undoubtedly ends with a moment of triumph for Carla after almost two hours of uncontrollable suffering.

Make no mistake– The creature is not perfect. It’s highly unlikely that anyone who loves the film as much as Martin Scorsese would even dare to claim. The special effects are particularly dated and the film fails to meaningfully balance its real and symbolic narratives, which is probably why it was so heavily derided upon its initial release. But the pieces are there for something with a little more depth than was necessarily initially called for, and in recent years critics have begun to recognize this The entity in a different light. Film scholar Daniel Kremer believes so The entity is a haunting parable about women’s sexual victimhood.

“When the film’s men don’t undermine her credibility or sanity, they objectify her, exploit her victimhood, diminish her ability to take control of her unfortunate circumstances, and ultimately give her the dignity of a glorified lab rat.”

Meanwhile, American film theorist Michael Atkinson has shared his thoughts on the matter The entityBelieving that apart from the Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg, no one has come up with a more powerful metaphor for experiencing hell, writing,

“It’s as if the film is writing its own library of feminist theories. It remains disturbing and brutal, arguably the most eloquent move ever made in Hollywood about the struggles of the sexual underclass.”

No matter what mood Camp fans fall in love with, the only way to truly appreciate the film is to track it down The entity and experience it personally. Nevertheless, fans should prepare themselves for one of the harshest, scariest and most disturbing film experiences of all time.