POSSESSED BY THE NIGHT

(director/writer: Fred Olen Ray; screenwriter: Mark Thomas McGee; cinematographer: Gary Graver; editors: Steve Nielson/Fima Noveck; music: Chuck Cirino; cast: Ted Prior (Howard Hansen), Shannon Tweed (Carol McKay), Sandahl Bergman (Peggy Hansen), Henry Silva (Scott Lindsey), Frank Sivero (Murray Dunlap), Turhan Bey (Calvin Beckman), Chad McQueen (Gus); Runtime: 84; MPAA Rating: R; producer: Alan Amiel; Columbia Home Video (Vision); 1994)
“It might not be a good pic, but it’s entertaining.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Exploitation director Fred Olen Ray(“After Midnight”/”Eyewitness”/”House of Secrets”) is in his elements in this mystery story. He co-writes the bizarre script with Mark Thomas McGee.

Howard Hansen (Ted Prior) is a horror story writer suffering from writer’s block. He lives with his wife Peggy (Sandahl Bergman) and his typist Carol McKay (Shannon Tweed). At a Chinatown curio shop Howard buys a twisted, one-eyed creature kept in a jar, that turns out to be something cursed. It causes nightmares and for him to have rough sex with his wife while the typist watches and masturbates with a gun.

A subplot has Howard’s corrupt agent (Frank Sivero) threatened by a mobster (Henry Silva) to pay up or else. To get the money, the agent has Carol steal Howard’s latest manuscript so he can sell it on the sly. When the creature influences Howard to have sex with Carol, she loses it and becomes a psychopath.

It might not be a good pic, but it’s entertaining.

REVIEWED ON 5/13/2015 GRADE: B-