A Cidade do Terror

A college student on a holiday break visits his very rural hometown, where his father is the local sheriff. A suspicious death has occurred there which is deemed an accident, unwarrantable of investigation. Soon, similar "accidents", each involving electrically-powered devices, claim several more lives, prompting our young hero to embark on a dangerous amateur investigation. Is this all simply random coincidence, or the work of a madman? Could the town be plagued by something supernatural?

EVIDENCE OF POWER is a very rudimentary offering with the dreary visual flatness of an early made-for-TV movie. The likable cast of veteran character players do their best to enliven an otherwise plodding feature...it's watchable, and does manage to lazily effectuate some tension, but it amounts to so little that it's almost like watching nothing at all.

Verdict...a passably sufficient, but mostly unmemorable wisp of a movie.

4/10.

I have a VHS tape of this which I recorded off late-night TV but the film itself is grainy in quality, not my tape's recording quality. It's an intricately plotted horror-mystery which will keep you guessing until the last scene.

It's great to see "The Skipper" (Alan Hale, Jr.) from Gilligan's Island and "Mr. Carlson" (Gordon Jump) from the TV comedy WKRP acting together. The lead actor is an unknown but does very well as the perplexed young protagonist.

It's nicely paced and never obvious who is, and if there really is, a killer. Interestingly, the last time I re-watched this movie was the very night that actor Gordon Jump died. I hope this film will come out on DVD soon, because many horror and mystery fans will enjoy it.