I've said it before (Find Me) - there ought to be a database somewhere of houses where people have been murdered. (Update: Apparently there is: diedinhouse.com. But you have to pay for it! Although I guess $11.99 isn't much to avoid a potential haunting.) It never turns out well for the new owners, like Ruth and Ben of The Evictors. Not that diedinhouse.com would've helped them - the action here takes place in 1942. But it still would have been nice for them to have gotten some kind of a heads up. The mysterious deaths in the old Louisiana house have since been explained away as accidents - but we know better. I won't spoil them, since they are slowly revealed and make up the bulk of the horror in the film. These scenes are nothing special, but this is a PG movie from 1979, so I guess they are about what you'd expect.
The opening scene takes place in a sepia-toned 1928. A banker and several cops in old-tymey cars approach an old house - the banker explains that he tried to evict the homeowners already, and they shot at him! So the crew going to the house is now well-armed and ready for action. He gets to the house and yells "Hey! It's just my job, but get out of the house!" And... he gets shot at again. A lot of gunplay ensues, and the credits roll. Hence, The Evictors. (The opening credits are probably the most stylish part of the movie - the action freeze frames and all of the sound goes away whenever a credit comes up. It kicks the film off with a solid feeling of tension and instability.)
Ruth (Jessica Harper, familiar from Suspiria) and Ben (Micheal Parks, well before he got in with Tarantino and Kevin Smith) are new to town. Ben recently got a job as a mechanic, and the happy couple buy the house, unaware of its violent history. A note shows up in the mailbox ("I want you to move") and Ruth starts to feel afraid of being alone there. Some strange dude seems to be wandering around on the property. And then neighbors start to tell her about all of the weird shit that has happened there in the past. And then things get worse. (For Ruth and Ben - the movie is okay all the way through.)
Overall, The Evictors is okay, if you can swing a relatively slow-paced piece of late 70s horror. The characters are nothing special - I guess Ruth is the best by default, but she's easily given the most to do. Harper plays Ruth as a scared, sad soul quite well, and she's very sympathetic as "the new girl in town" put in a shitty situation. The film is decently paced too. I mean, there isn't a ton of stuff that happens, but at least it's divvied up well.
It's billed and sort of set up as a supernatural/haunted house type film, and it feels that way at first, the way the house is shot all forebodingly and what not. But there aren't any paranormal shenanigans to be found in The Evictors. And when the opening scene is 1928 and the film takes place fourteen years later, you kind of figure that a ghost isn't going to play into things. I mean, I wouldn't be nearly as scared of a ghost from 2001. It's just not as creepy. I would say a ghost has to be at least 35 years old to achieve maximum scariness.
The horror elements are okay - again, it's a PG movie from 1979, so set your expectations accordingly. Most of the horror stuff takes place in flashbacks, and something about sepia-toned film just isn't all that frightening. But there are still a couple of deaths that are somewhat disturbing conceptually - they just aren't shot as morbidly as they could be. The Evictors is never gory or anything, and it feels like the whole thing could play unedited on television today with no concerns.
A couple of things about the ending though... (not really spoilers, but if you want to watch an okayish 70s flick fresh beware) (1) There is a "twist" ending that I could see coming from a mile away. It works I guess, but is still way too easy to spot. However, there is a "double twist" that I didn't see coming that is just plain stupid, but it's more of an epilogue type thing anyways. (2) The dumb twist is sort of forgivable though, since it's preceded by a bummer of an ending. Even though that seems to have been a standard practice in horror films from this era, the ending here seems even rougher than usual. (But again, more in concept than execution.)
So I don't know. It's the second time I've watched something recently (Torment just a couple of days ago) that wasn't inherently bad, but is just not all that exciting. There's nothing wrong with The Evictors, and if I was talking to some random person, I would recommend it. It's kind of cool if you're into slowish 70s horror. (And I am!) And that's the cool thing now, right? But if anyone I knew personally asked, it would be a much more cautious recommendation. And honestly, at this point if you're reading this, there's a good chance I know you and may have to answer to you. So buyer beware.
I would cautiously recommend this film.
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