Review of Good Against Evil

'Good against Evil' is actually an exciting movie, much better than reputed, and well crafted, its storyline offered indeed a possibility of progress, by bringing in the older priest, a very striking look (better than v. Sydow, in an equally conventional part), so there was the opportunity to continue the storyline (as emphasized by Rambo's teaming with O'Herlihy); there are also silly and clumsy, unintended funny moments, I do not mean the banal look of the attacks (fear can be shown like this), but the exorcist fighting with a pillow, or sipping a drink and looking self-important and conceited, which diminishes his dignity, so some slapdash. As a Gothic romance, it belongs to a now forgotten TV genre, named Gothic soap opera, which also accounts for the cardboard characters. Its eeriness works, I liked the cityscapes, perhaps the profanation of the church would of worked better as an evening scene, and with more characters.

The script emphasizes that the plot is at least as much about love, as about the occult. This pilot has been meant to establish a story, which it does, convincingly, it's soap opera with occultism; it deals with Satanism as a cult, a '70s topic, and understandably so. An equally good series could have followed. The leading actor should of been a success with the female audiences, so we'll leave it at that. But the cast is very good: Lynch, O'Herlihy, Kim Cattrall.

The veteran of the cast was O'Herlihy, who still had some nice roles ahead. Here, he does a colorful exorcist, though with the aforementioned silly moments.