Equinox (1970)
This one starts with David Fielding (Edward Connell) running away from something. He is then hit by a car with no driver. A year later he is still in a psychiatric ward. In flashback David tells us about his trip to visit his old professor along with his friends Jim (Frank Bonner, Herb from WKRP), Susan and Vicki.
The movie is essentially the same plot as "Evil Dead." Group of young people go into the woods, encounters an evil tome, and all hell breaks loose. Literally. Soon they encounter a park ranger named Asmodeus, as in THE Asmodeus.
The find Dr. Waterman's cabin in the woods, but it is destroyed. Then of all things they find a medieval castle in the distance.
Much like "The Sentinel," this film deals with a gateway to Hell. This time, the portal is opened when Dr. Watermann's book is read, and the demons are summoned. So yeah, like Evil Dead done by Ray Harryhausen instead of Sam Rami.
The plot is thin, and the special effects look more like those of the 1960s than those of the 1970s (no surprise), but they are pretty much on par with what I'd expect for early 1970s pre-Exorcist.
Featured Monster: Devil
This one is obviously a devil in both form and deed and quite possibly even a good Asmodeus. This film was very popular in the midnight Drive-Inn circuit, so it is possible this flick was a possible influence on the Monster Manual, but it is more likely that both Gygax and the film's writers were drawing on the same sources popular at the time.
October Horror Movie Challenge 2024
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1 comment:
Equinox is great. It's a movie that was too ambitious for its budget, and somehow managed to pull it off anyway.
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