The Force of Evil

Talk about being baffled, as I popped the tape in the player and I sat down to watch this movie with the opening credits blaring with the title of Quinn Martin's 'Tales of the Unexpected'. Huh… that was unexpected and then the title 'Force of Evil' appeared. Phew. I knew I was going to watch a made for TV movie, but I didn't entirely know it was originally apart of a series which would have narrator William Conrad opening and closing the feature. I don't know what happened with this TV series, but this entry 'Force of Evil' was a captivating experience despite being almost a rehash up until the end involving a houseboat of the 1962 dark thriller 'Cape Fear'. If you can look pass that, you get a tight, lingering and menacingly solid thriller with excellent performances by the reliably classy Lloyd Bridges, Pat Crowley, John Anderson and a magnetically dominating William Watson as the terrifying ex-con Teddy Jakes who was convicted for the rape-murder of a girl seven years ago is now on parole seeking torturous revenge on Dr. Yale Carrington and his family.

Despite its plain look (well it's for TV); it's exceptionally presented and suspenseful even when the action is low-key. This clever character drama with an almost supernatural twist(?) to certain plot details (mainly that head-scratching end to the climax), is slow burn with its tit for tat between the doctor and con. This guy won't go away, and leaves the moral question of going beyond to protect love ones even though it means entering their frame of mind. There's a genuine feel to it, and the relationships and turmoil are committed in the way they are brought across. Going against it, is the predictable layout and some problems with pockets of stodgy pacing. Nonetheless director Richard Lang's sturdy approach makes good use of the vast rural dust-bowl locations and infuses some hauntingly harrowing images with an eerily high-pitched score.

A sure-footed family in peril thriller with a larger-than-life villainous performance.

It's always good and useful in case you learn a few things from watching a movie, is it not? I learned two things from "The Force of Evil". Number 1: the basic plot of the classic thriller "Cape Fear" remains effectively disturbing and scary regardless of the setting, characters and production values. Number 2: like with Leslie Nielsen, it has practically become impossible to watch an older and serious role of Lloyd Bridges without being reminded of his slapstick roles in "Airplane!" or "Hot Shots". The second learning might as well be very personal, so I feel it's better to elaborate on the first. "The Force of Evil" is a modestly produced and rather anonymous late 70s TV-movie that also got released as a 60-minute episode in the cult series "Tales of the Unexpected". Although not credited as such, it's a pure imitation of J. Lee Thompson's "Cape Fear" (adapted from the novel "The Executioners" by John D. MacDonald) with a few minor changes in the plot and the adding of a supernatural atmosphere. The villainous, downright evil role put down by Robert Mitchum in "Cape Fear" is obviously unsurpassable, but I'll gladly admit that William Watson also depicts a truly menacing and uncanny monster here in this version. He, Teddy Jakes, is a rapist/murderer on parole and returning to the remote little Arizonan town where he used to live and work in the local clinic. The eminent surgeon there, Dr. Carrington, refused to provide him with a fake alibi 8 years ago, and that's why Jakes ended up in jail. He's back with an intense grudge against Dr. Carrington and his family, but Terry Jakes is smart enough to stalk and terrorize people without leaving any evidence or even doing something illegal. The good and noble Doctor is driven to desperation so badly that he's even ready to take the law into his own hands.

You see, it's "Cape Fear" all over again, but "The Force of Evil" is nonetheless worth tracking down for its tense atmosphere, the strong performances and a handful of noteworthy creep-moments. For example, the home delivery of a box of flowers (or are they?) is quite grim, and so is the first confrontation between Teddy Jakes and Dr. Carrington's daughter on her horse. Oh, and I also want to congratulate the casting director with his/her choices. The odd-faced Watson is perfect and the pairing of Lloyd Bridges and John Anderson as brothers is also really smart.

Back in the late 1970's I saw a movie on late night TV that was really creepy. It has stuck in my mind for almost 30 years. I have been trying to find out what the name of it was and see it again for a long time. It was about a doctor that had testified in a trial years earlier and sent this creepy guy to prison. Now that he's out of prison he wants to get revenge on the doctor and proceeds to torment him and his family.

A few years later I watched a movie I'd never heard of before called Cape Fear, which was made in the early 1960's. Strangely enough it had the same exact storyline as that movie that had been haunting me. Obviously Cape Fear was the original and the one from the late 70s was a remake.

In the early 1990s I heard they were making another remake of Cape Fear. Maybe I'd finally find out something about my mystery film? With all the hoopla about the second remake, I never saw any mention of the first one from the 1970s. I realized that the film I saw was probably very obscure and was probably a made for TV movie.

Eventually I got on the internet and found out about IMDb. Surely I could finally find out about that creepy movie that I saw so many years ago. I looked up Cape Fear and only the remake from the early 1990s was listed. That seemed really strange, because Cape Fear was a well known film and I thought some movie buff would have already put a connection to the remake I saw under "Movie Connections". No such luck.

A few years ago I was looking through the catalog of a company that sold rare VHS tapes and I read the description for something called "Force of Evil". I realized at once that I'd found it! This was that movie that I had been searching for, for almost 30 years. I got on IMDb again and saw that it was a made for TV movie as I had thought. Interestingly enough it was a Quinn Martin production and was narrated by William Conrad. That made sense as I recalled the distinctive narration it had when I originally saw it. It starred Lloyd Bridges and even had one of the Brady Bunch girls in it - Eve Plumb.

I managed to get a copy on VHS and re-watch it again at last. It was as cool as I had remembered it. It does indeed have virtually the same exact storyline as Cape Fear, even down to the houseboat near the end.

So cool to know the name and see it again after all those years!

This was produced back in the late 70's, back when they still made suspense movies for TV that were entertaining (remember the 90-min. ABC movies of the early 70's? This film is in a similar vein but better). Like others have said, this is one that you remember all through the years if you originally saw it as a kid or teen. It had some pretty memorable shock scenes for it's time and especially for television. It also features very good performances from the actors: Lloyd Bridges, William Watson as the bitter ex-con Teddy Jakes, and veteran character actor John Anderson as Lloyd's brother & sheriff trying to find ways to catch Jakes before he hurts Bridge's family. I found this on VHS back in the early 90's but I'm sure it's out of print now - I'm glad I picked it up when it was available because it's almost as good now as it was 27 years ago. Hopefully, a re-make of this will be produced at some point down the road, although the plot is quite similar to "Cape Fear".

This was actually a pilot for the short lived, but very effective "Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected." It's sad that no one seems to rebroadcast this series. William Conrad provided the narration for the movie pilot and the series. The series had one of the creepiest and visually scary introductions that I ever have seen. It puts you in mind of the intro for the 80s version of the Twilight Zone series.

You could pretty much sum this movie up as a supernatural version of Cape Fear. The actor who played the angry ex-con was an effective character actor who did a lot of work during the 70s. He showed up a lot on shows such as Cannon as a heavy. Bridges and the rest of the cast do good jobs as the family living in fear of this man with a serious grudge. I hope Sci-Fi or someone will reshow both this movie and the series.