The Force of Evil (1977)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

A lot of fun.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is starting to become a bad habit. I keep putting films back to the bottom of the "to watch" pile just because of the title. This one had made it to the top 3-4 times before i finally broke down and threw in the player. What do i find but a television remake of CAPE FEAR. And a not bad knockoff at that. The makers make a few minor changes but keep most of the story intact. In this one we have Lloyd Bridges in the Greg Peck role, Pat Crowley as the wife, Eve Plumb as the daughter, John Anderson as the police chief and William Waston in Mitchum's bit. Watson might not ring any bells but you would know him if you saw him. He did lots of series in the 70's as a heavy, gunman type. Not expecting much from the film it took me a bit to clue in to what it really was, a remake of Cape Fear. Then it got real interesting real fast. The film is rather nasty and violent for a TV film. Bridges and Crowley are good but Watson shines in an excellent take on Mitchum. Being a Quinn Martin film we of course have William Conrad as the opening narrator. This was the pilot for a failed series called TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED. The director was Richard Lang who worked on some "HARRY O" episodes and a TV remake of Dark Mirror. A good little film and a nice way to spend an evening in front of the boob tube.

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.

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".

I remember this movie 27 years later so that should do justice to its staying power! Without giving away anything, suffice to say I recall the movie being thrilling, in a 1970's sort of way (those were more innocent days for everyone). William Watson turns in a really good performance as the scary guy too!What I also find interesting is the cast: Lloyd Bridges is good in anything he does and Eve Plumb, for those who may not remember, was Jan Brady and later tried (more or less unsuccessfully) to branch out into TV. If I recall she was in a movie about a girl who had multiple personality syndrome.The ending of this film, if I recall was especially scary, again, for the time.