The Evictors (1979)

****SPOILERS**** The movie starts back in 1928 with an eviction notice for the Monroes who've been behind in not paying their state & property taxes for the last five years. Refusing to go quietly and join the legions of homeless people in and around Shreveport La. The Monroes decide to fight it out with the evictors made up of mostly state police and end up getting blasted by them in return. It's now 1942 and this young married couple the Watkins Ben & Ruth,Michael Parks & Jessica Parker, move into the former Monroe house not realizing what's waiting for them there! It was the real-estate agent Jake Rudd, Vic Morrow, who sold the house to the Watkins who kept from them not only the deaths of the Monroes but a number of other strange and unexplained death that occurred there over the last 14 years to people that lived, and later died violently, there.Predictably strange things started to happen to the Watkins that included this tall and creepy looking farmhand who showed up at all hours in the day and night to terrorized the couple. He even went so far as murdering with a ax in his back to kind and elderly junk-man who just happened to show up to sell Ruth some of the trinkets he found rummaging through the neighborhood garbage dump! It's the Watkins's next door neighbor the wheelchair bound and widowed Olie Gibson, Sue Ane Langdon, who goes out of her way to make both Ben & Ruth to feel at home in the neighborhood. But you soon notice that their something that Olie's is keeping from them as well as we in the audience that explains the terror what the Watkins are going through! And it all has to do with the shootout back in 1928 with the state police that left the Monroes dead and buried. ***SPOILERS*** "The Evictors" has already after some 35 years reached cult statues with the movie considered among the best of the slew of 1970's horror movies in it concentrating more on story not on special effects as well as blood & gore which is mostly absent in it. The shocking ending that leads to an even more shocking double ending, when you thought the movie was finally over, makes what at that time was a better then average horror movie to an all time classic one!

"The Evictors" takes place in a rural Louisiana town in 1942 and is also based on a true story. A young couple from New Orleans move into their dream house in the woods of Louisiana. The home seems ideal for a wife to fix up while the husband is out working his new job. The previous owners are still attached to the house and will do anything they have to in order to get it back for themselves. The new owners begin to fear for their lives as a mysterious stranger stalks and violently threatens them.I've found a new favorite director in Charles B. Pierce. He is the perfect example of a filmmaker who doesn't need to lean on graphic imagery and gore to get a viewer's blood pumping. He is a believer in the "less is more" school of thought and it works perfectly for him. Pierce slowly builds tension and then lets it explode on you at the last minute. You know something dreadful is coming but are still creeped out about it when it finally arrives.Although "The Evictors" isn't a completely true story, all you have to do is a little investigating to know there's still quite a bit of validity in what happens on screen. I think that's what makes the film even more frightening. The thought that real people went through these ordeals in some form or another. I also found it interesting that besides some bad language, "The Evictors" was rather clean for this type of movie. There wasn't any nudity to be seen. I was wondering why this was until I read that director Pierce was a Baptist.

I'm a big fan of Charles B. Pierce's movies and particularly admire the efforts he did in the field of horror. His movies are extremely low-budgeted, always incredibly hard to come across on VHS or DVD-R and they seemingly always appear to be inspired by true events, no matter how unlikely they may sound. "Legend of Boggy Creek" was a moody documentary-styled film revolving on the contemporary popular Sasquatch legend, the close-to-brilliant "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" was a predecessor to the modern teen-slashers as well as one of the rawest rural horror films ever made and then this "The Evictors", perhaps the most obscure movie of the entire bunch, is an impressively tense and slow-brooding 'haunted-house' type of chiller with a twist. Needless to say this film doesn't feature any outrageous gore, spectacular stunts or exploitative sleaze. Instead of all that, "The Evictors" purely thrives on a continuously ominous atmosphere, devoted performances and a few intelligently scripted surprise-twists when approaching the denouement. The largest part of the story takes place in a secluded little Louisianan town during the early 1940's. Pierce masterfully recreates the grim and almost depressing atmosphere of that era with exact period details (like vehicles, costumes, religious matters and the noticeable impact of WWII going on in Europe) and a rather uncanny yellow-tinted cinematography. The story opens in the year 1928, with the rather harsh eviction of a family from their farmhouse by heavily armed police officers and a relentless real estate agent. Nearly 15 years later the amiable young couple Ben & Ruth Watkins move in. During the long days when Ben is working at the factory, Ruth makes her acquaintance with the neighbors and learns that everyone who lived in the house during the 30's also died there under mysterious circumstances. The stories of the previous tenants are illustrated through extended flashbacks that easily form the suspenseful highlights of the movie (along with the gripping climax, of course). Ruth becomes increasingly terrified of living in the house and then one night she encounters a tall, dark and sinister man atop the stairs… "The Evictors" is incredibly slow-paced (and probably not intended for younger, nowadays horror audiences) but very, VERY rewarding if you like ambiance-driven 70's horror. The murders are tamely depicted but they're surely brutal in tone and, even though you sort of can predict the final twist, it still comes across as mildly shocking when it gets revealed. Vic Morrow receives top billing for his role as sly estate agent, but it's really Jessica Harper and Michael Parks that deserve the most praise. Horror freaks will always remember and worship the stunningly beautiful and cherubic Mrs. Harper for her role in Dario Argento's genre milestone "Suspiria" and Michael Parks is nowadays mostly known for his returning role of Texas Ranger Earl McGraw in the films of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. The two form a charming on screen couple and they get some excellent supportive feedback from Sue Ann Langdon (as the wheelchair-bound neighbor), Dennis Fimple and Bill Thurman. This is a terrific film that could perhaps be described as a forerunner of films like "The Others" and "The Messengers", only with the irreplaceable fiendish ambiance of 70's exploitation/drive-in cinema. Highly recommended!

More like mystery/thriller with the look and feel of a low-budget horror. Opening with a flashback scene we see a family massacred by cops in their Louisiana farmhouse. Fast forward a few years (to 1942) and a young married couple is moving in. At first all seems idyllic--but there are dark clouds gathering. First, a junk-dealer tells the wife about a gruesome murder in the house. The locals are leery abut the place, the wife learns of more murders (we see all in flashbacks). The junk-dealer is murdered while chopping wood by a stranger who creeps up and plants the axe in his back. Later, the wife returns to find the stranger in the house with her. She escapes though the stranger returns later. ****SPOILER****Her husband, who's returned late from a business trip is killed by accident. Eventually the killer is revealed, I won't give it away, just suffice to say not everyone is who they seem to be. A little out-of-character for AIP which struggled in the '70s to find a new formula as successful as the teen horror and drug/biker flicks with which they made their name in the previous 2 decades, but worth a look.