New York, 1955. A pregnant woman is abducted & taken to a deserted hospital where she gives birth & is then killed. The child is consecrated to the demon Astaroth & is marked as the future mother of the Antichrist. Twenty-two years later, the child, now a young fashion designer in San Francisco & named Jessica Gordon, meets up with a man who accidentally runs into her car. They begin dating. But the mysterious disciples that watch over her consider the man, named Andy Stuart, is a threat to their plans. Headed by Mr. Rimmon, the head of the Astaroth cult, they send a guardian to keep an eye on her but he is killed by a bolting horse. Andy & Jessica decide to get married but the priest selected for the wedding discovers Jessica's link with the demon & tries to warn Andy. Rimmon learns of this & abducts Jessica, erasing her memory of Andy & their time together, kills the priest & empty Jessica's home & business, taking her to New Orleans. Andy, never one to give up, travels to New Orleans when he discovers that the daughter of an old friend is possessed by Astaroth. Along with another priest, Father Kemschler (an expert on exorcisms), Andy manages to hold an exorcism to save the child.
Good Against Evil was one of the last of a spate of telefilms made in the 1970s as knock-offs of the original trilogy of demonic films such as Rosemary's Baby, THE OMEN & The Exorcist. This film would be one of the very last entries in this subgenre & was an ill-fated attempt at making a new television series based on this template.
The film, being a 1970s telefilm, is dramatically flat, overly talky, has dodgy pacing & the visual effects budget is almost nonexistent, resulting in almost no visual effects, except for the climactic exorcism, which uses simple tricks that require no effort (more on that later). The script comes from Jimmy Sangster, a prolific writer whose specialty is in making thrillers where the main character is being driven crazy (& one script involves a person driving themselves crazy), & who tries to try a new direction in this one. But his script, while interesting, is nothing more than a hodgepodge of old ideas coming from a decade before & hold no weight in the narrative sense. This being a telefilm, the concept has an open ending & resembles one of those old 1970s thrillers that make a virtue of hopping between exotic destinations (although the most exotic Good Against Evil gets is a Japanese restaurant in San Francisco & a hospital in New Orleans).
That said, the film is nothing short of being mediocre, although there are times when the film becomes slightly interesting. Richard Lynch, as the central villain of the show, has a creepy presence that almost overwhelms the main characters' motivations, although he only appears at odd intervals. The acting is quite good, especially from Lynch & Dan O'Herlihy as the exorcist (although not enough to save the film from functional mediocrity) & has an early appearance from Kim Cattrall. As for that exorcism scene, the sight of O'Herlihy standing in the middle of the child's room unfazed while off-screen stage technicians pretend to be demonic forces & toss the furniture around him is absolutely hilarious.
Good Against Evil was one of the last of a spate of telefilms made in the 1970s as knock-offs of the original trilogy of demonic films such as Rosemary's Baby, THE OMEN & The Exorcist. This film would be one of the very last entries in this subgenre & was an ill-fated attempt at making a new television series based on this template.
The film, being a 1970s telefilm, is dramatically flat, overly talky, has dodgy pacing & the visual effects budget is almost nonexistent, resulting in almost no visual effects, except for the climactic exorcism, which uses simple tricks that require no effort (more on that later). The script comes from Jimmy Sangster, a prolific writer whose specialty is in making thrillers where the main character is being driven crazy (& one script involves a person driving themselves crazy), & who tries to try a new direction in this one. But his script, while interesting, is nothing more than a hodgepodge of old ideas coming from a decade before & hold no weight in the narrative sense. This being a telefilm, the concept has an open ending & resembles one of those old 1970s thrillers that make a virtue of hopping between exotic destinations (although the most exotic Good Against Evil gets is a Japanese restaurant in San Francisco & a hospital in New Orleans).
That said, the film is nothing short of being mediocre, although there are times when the film becomes slightly interesting. Richard Lynch, as the central villain of the show, has a creepy presence that almost overwhelms the main characters' motivations, although he only appears at odd intervals. The acting is quite good, especially from Lynch & Dan O'Herlihy as the exorcist (although not enough to save the film from functional mediocrity) & has an early appearance from Kim Cattrall. As for that exorcism scene, the sight of O'Herlihy standing in the middle of the child's room unfazed while off-screen stage technicians pretend to be demonic forces & toss the furniture around him is absolutely hilarious.