User reviews

The video box makes "A Name For Evil" look like an ordinary thriller but it's got a very distinct flavor to it. Robert Culp plays a man who gets fed up with the rat race and heads off with his wife (Samantha Eggar) to the forest to try to get himself back together. He soon begins having odd hallucinations. This is where the film comes into it's own. During the scenes in which Culp rides off on a white horse (the spirit of his grand-father) the film seems to become a bizarre nightmare. It gets hard to tell what is real and what is fantasy. It's almost like being on an acid trip. The film is disjointed and confusing at times which makes it annoying but the end result is a most unusual film that lingers in one's mind long after watching it.

Much has been made of this movie's 'plot', or lack of one. The white horse is just not scary! The hippy scenes are dated and unintentionally humorous (I guess hippies love noodles). It could easily qualify for a Mystery Science Theater 3000 feature. But I really enjoyed the first thirty minutes or so of this movie. I liked the intro, and the photography is great. The dilapitated house in what appears to be the middle of nowhere is one of the more interesting settings I've ever seen in a ghost film. I like the fact that the caretakers wanted it to rot away. If they stayed away from the counter-culture movement and focused soley on telling a ghost story it would have been a better film.

***SPOILERS*** Sloppy and confusing haunted house movie that seems to have been spliced together by a bunch of film editors who were high on Johnny Walker Black.

Nothing in the film "A Name for Evil" makes any sense including it's "Suprise Ending" which is no surprise at all since like the rest of the movie it predictably makes no sense to those of us watching it.

Robert Culp as John Blake looks more confused and disoriented in the film then scared as the owner of "The Major's" place that was left to him by his great-granddaddy "The Major" who was a captain in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War.

There's also a very unemotional scene, on John's part, at the funeral of John's younger brother Moss who was killed during the fighting in the War in Vietnam which has, or seems to have, nothing to do with the movie.

At the start of the film "A Name for Evil" we have John quit his job as a big city architect and check out to the Vancouver countryside into his great-granddad "The Major's" place. John wants to get away from the dog-eat-dog world that he's been living in all his adult life thats been burning him out. At first you think that John's wife Joanna, Samantha Eggar, wasn't going with him since she thought he was a bit too hasty in his plans.Later Joanna pops up, like a ghost, at "The Major's" place and together with John they both start to get the place fixed up where they can live in it. John also gets Fats, Mike Lane, the local hotel manager car mechanic cook and all around handyman to have a number of the towns locals to also help fix up "The Major's" place. We later see workmen discover a hidden room in "The Major's" place where'The Major" kept his most secret papers and documents that hasn't been touched for some fifty years. Were never told just what was the reason for them being there in the first place, wasn't anyone interested in finding out what was in them?

Later a bunch of John and Joanna's friends stop over at "The Major's" place for the weekend to talk about old times. John, bored with the meaningless chit-chat goes outside and sees "The Major's" white horse, who if alive must have been close to 100 years old. Without a second thought John suddenly jumps on it's back and rides into town as it dumps John inside the local bar. Getting up off the floor John parties with the people there in a drunken orgy! Was there supposed to be some hidden symbolism in this totally senseless scene?

Striking up a friendship with local girl Luanna Baxter, Sheila Sullivan, John and Luanna end up both drunk and in bed together the next morning from the all night partying. Going back to "The Major's" with his car, not his horse, John is surprised shocked confused, like all of us watching the movie, and finally outraged by Joanna's accusations of him brutalizing and beating her up the night before!

Being that John was with Luanna at the time he tells Joanna that she's nuts for saying what she did about him and that he could prove that he didn't. That truth by spending the night with Luanna was almost as bad, in Joanna's mind, as abusing and beating her. John in a fit of fury drives back to town to get Luanna to prove his innocence which sets up the films "Suprise Ending" that confuses you even more then you were confused already by the movie up till then.

"A Name for Evil" is both an eyesore and headache to anyone trying to watch and understand just what it's trying to tell you which only those who wrote the script really know for sure..I Think?

"A Name For Evil" is one of those seventies films that tries to blend a genre (horror, noir, crime, comedy, what-have-you) with the counter culture movement that had caught on by then and become a trendy, pop, fashion movement. Culp, who looks good for his age (he was in his early forties at the time) is way too long in the tooth for hippyville, but still, he's groovy man, really groovy. Clearly this is his movie, with an emphasis on his body rather than the women, evidenced by several beefcake scenes and one full frontal. He and his wife the beautiful Samantha Eggar, live in a not too distant futuristic world of oppression who decide to move to a huge gorgeous ruin of a lake house and go back to nature. The gigantic fixer-upper is haunted by the previous owner, "The Major", who, we are told repeatedly, does not like change. Creepy things happen and are discovered in the house, and go nowhere. Culp and Eggar have marital problems that go nowhere. The most bizarre moment comes late in the film when Culp rides off on a white horse after being unable to make love to his stunning wife. He ends up riding into a hippie hootenanny that quickly becomes a bizarre antique version of a music video with a folk song sung by a sombre looking young man and strange choreographed dance on the part of the youngins. An orgy ensues (natch) and Culp is officially a flower child (make that flower middle aged man, but at this point who cares), then it's back to the house for a stupid ending that tries to shock. I got the feeling during this movie, particularly with the presence of Culp's then wife who plays the hippie chick he hooks up with at the love-in, that this was some sort of excuse for the cast and crew to get away from the city and party. If you're looking for a ghost story or thriller, you'll be disappointed. If you're in the mood for a blast from the seventies past, where men still wore necklaces over flower patterned dress shirts and hated "THE MAN", check it out.

Like so many movies I've seen recently, A NAME FOR EVIL starts off promisingly but it quickly, and I mean QUICKLY, degenerates into a stunning mess. Once Robert Culp rides that horse and accidentally joins a a bunch of partying hippies who all shed their clothes and have an orgy all over the forest, the film self-destructs, literally. BOOM!!! The whole thing becomes stultifyingly, inexplicably bad. What were they thinking? The ending is the weirdest looking one I've ever seen (the whole moment of Samantha Eggar falling towards the ground). And the scene when Culp makes love under water has to be the worst conceived scene ever put on film. It's 100% fake looking. The film is very short (thank god), which only points out how the folks behind the camera had no idea what they were doing and wanted to end the whole thing fast.

But the odd thing about this seldom seen movie is that the cinematography is stunning. I love this kind of photography. As bad as everything else is in this disaster, I have to give credit to the DP. Had the cinematography been average or just bad, then I think I would qualify A NAME FOR EVIL as one of the worst films ever made.

This is one of those moments when you try to warn people about losing, perhaps, a good deal of their lives to this slopfest. I watched this "movie" last night in AMC, having nothing better to do. Alas, doing nothing would have been actually better, but I was NOT warned.

A Name For Evil starts promising enough, about a bores-out-of-his-skull architect (or something like that) that inherits this wreck of a house, supposedly built during the civil war era. This is supposed to be a haunted house movie, but it suddenly degenerates into somebody's acid trip, when Robert Culp goes out for a walk and jumps into this white horse, goes to a hippie party, gets a blonde chick laid, goes back home, confronts his wife (who believes the guy never left), goes OUT again but this time in his car, goes back to pick up the blond chick, frolic in a pond... then the guy gets back home and kills the wife in a pseudosurrealistic scene, and in comes the credits... uh, forget about the shadows the guy saw at his home, or the tunnel in the basement from where air with enough pneumatic pressure knocks his lantern off his hand...

I know some movie makers in the early 70s experimented a lot, but horror movies are pretty much straightforward affairs, so why in the world did the producers of this stinker see the need to change a well known and tried formula? I mean, gosh, the seventies WAS the decade of The Exorcist and The Omen... I do not know, but I guess the producers needed a good platform for the folksy singer that plays the guitar, accompanied by a full orchestra that happens to be invisible... well, lets say I do not think Mr. Culp remembers this stinker with much nostalgia.

From what I read in the tv guide it sounded like it might be a rather interesting haunted house movie. Instead it is perhaps one of the most boring movies ever filmed. The plot is muddled and really makes no sense, it is very slow paced, and there are very few instances of supernatural going ons. Instead the most we see is a shadow moving here and there and a stupid horse. This makes "The Amityville Horror" look like an Italian horror film splatter fest. The plot, couple moves into an old house that belonged to the guy's great grandfather. You figure out the rest. Apparently, the ghost is haunting the place, but nothing much happens. Even the end makes very little sense. Why this movie was entitled "A Name For Evil" is beyond me. Well that was the name of the book, but I hope the book had more going on than happened here. I have to say avoid this movie at all cost. It is almost to painful to sit through, you will feel like taking a nap in the middle of it and by golly you will not miss a thing. I can not believe this movie was on amc, because it is not an american classic.

Others have commented on the evidently different versions of this film, the nudity, beautiful cinematography, and scrambled plot. My two cents: "A Name For Evil" looks like a film that has gone through many hands. It definitely has it's strengths: the afore-mentioned photography of some spectacular locations, good performances from Culp and Egger, a stunning evocation of early '70's wackiness, and a few nicely creepy moments.

But I have to mention something else no one else has yet talked about: Dominic Frontiere's grand score. If you like Frontiere's work, especially his "Outer Limits" music which this strongly resembles, you owe it to yourself to at least listen to this movie.

This happened to come on last week late at night and I seriously thought I may have found a unheard of gem..especially by the beginning as it was quite atmospheric and had eerie music/credits rolling..and then the movie started..wow..what a turd.This is 1 stinker and it actually bored me and irritated me at the same time {something only a few movies have managed to do..Salo being one of them}. What on earth was the director smoking to do such a pretentious/erratic/unscary horror flick such as this.These types of film can give the 70s horror generation a bad name all on their own.If you see this on late night T.V...run don't walk away.

This movie is pure early 70's kitsch and the best for Robert Culp (I Spy) and Samantha Eggar fans. All of those wonderful clothes that are more like costumes; "in" clothing and decor that collectors would love to find in the second-hand shops now; "mod" architecture; Culp and Eggar in their prime. It is the sort of slow-moving tale of a haunt that is more in line with the black and white films of the 40s and 50s where all of the terror came from shadows and angles and fear of the "unseen". Think of "The Uninvited" or "Cat People", the original "Haunting of Hill House", "The turn of the Screw" etc. Just perfect for a lazy late-night or early a.m. with nothing else to do! I enjoyed it. Not for those looking for fast-breaking terror, though.

Perhaps it takes a certain kind of film viewer to appreciate the charms of A Name for Evil. As has been bemoaned by other reviewers, A Name for Evil has a disjointed story, a hippie orgy, and a full frontal sex scene with past his prime Robert Culp. Yet, for some viewers these eccentricities can be strengths. I have seen A Name for Evil twice now. I was not bored either time. The film kept me watching because, on the first viewing, I did not know what to expect next, and on the second viewing, I admired the film's mixtures of styles as a Gothic horror film is given early swinging seventies treatment, from Penthouse Films no less.

According to IMDb, A Name for Evil had a troubled production. It appears to this viewer that certain scenes were not shot, either because of time or because the filmmakers thought certain points were clearer than they were. However, the lack of a linear narrative does lend the film a certain disquieting mood, as the viewer is left almost as confused as Robert Culp's character.

There is a certain type of viewer who occasionally tires of professionally told plots and seeks out films not afraid to go off the rails, a viewer who loves when artiness is wedded to exploitation. All my years of watching Euro-horror, where plots did not matter as long as a scene was moody, surprising, or odd, has turned me into such a viewer. A Name for Evil surprises the viewer. From the opening credits over surreal paintings of twisted figures to the abrupt finale, A Name for Evil keeps the viewer off balance. I also think parts of it are well filmed. For instance, unlike one other reviewer, I find the underwater sex scene moody and hypnotic, having some of the off-kilter quality of Let's Scare Jessica to Death (another film I champion). Obviously, I cannot recommend A Name for Evil to most people, yet I will probably watch the film for a third time.

Although he showed that he is a total actor and that he has no problem appearing completely naked, including full frontal in front of the camera, a gesture of courage that few actors make, Robert Culp did not made a good choice in making this film. The same can be said about Samantha Eggar, who doesn't appear naked, she being the reason why I wanted to see the movie. They were both wasted in a banal, absurd, embarrassing story, with a haunted house. Dominic Frontiere's music, excellent in other productions such as "The Invaders", is not good here. Overall, just a waste of time. A star for Eggar and a star for Culp, for their work.

Poor Robert Culp looks utterly bewildered in this strange oddity that never decides just what kind of film it wants to be. The production values are surprisingly strong, and the movie does have some striking visuals that will stick in your head. But the story is just about totally incoherent, with scenes seeming to be missing, scenes that don't seem to serve any purpose, and scenes that just don't make any kind of sense. If you do stick around, you will be rewarded with what just might be one of the most unintentionally funny orgy sequences every put onto film... as well as a frontal nude Culp, which must have made him glad that the movie was first shelved for several years, subsequently barely released to theaters, and only given a small video release on a now-defunct video label.

It absolutely sucked.On a scale from 1 to 10 with 1 being the all time worst I give it a minus 9.I can't wrack my brain for the appropriate adjective to describe how shitty this film was. There was no rhyme or reason, the film itself was grainy and the sound was terrible.Robert Culp looked like a used up, over the hill wanna-be cool guy with crappy clothes and some really scary brillo- like hair. THAT it in itself was enough to send you screaming away.Don't bother to rent, borrow or watch this on TV. EEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are only two other movies that rate worse than this piece of crap, The House Where Evil Dwells and The Tingler. Save yourself the grief and the money for therapy after seeing this loser.

One thing about heterosexuals guys, or this one, I do not care how good he is looking, I do not want to see another guy naked. Just reacting to the comment I just read..

The six is not exactly for quality by any normal standard, but for sheer curiosity value--the curiosity of both what's on screen and whatever went on off-screen. Because this is one of those movies that should come annotated with the story of its production history; you get a very strong sense that the money ran out or something before they were finished shooting, necessitating a very awkward patch-up in the editing room that's disjointed and has some very cheesy, even amateurish elements (like the "ghost's" silly voice-over comments) alongside very accomplished and daring ones.

Culp plays a man who enrages his brother (heard, but not seen) by quitting whatever their business is. Over the objections of the wife (Eggar) he already has unspecified problems with--for one thing, she's always at his throat--he insists they move into the wrecked house of a late grandfather he knows almost nothing about. We hear the grandfather ("the Major") on the soundtrack say that he wouldn't let the property be changed while he was alive, so why should he while he's dead? He also periodically moans "Go awaaaaaay!" or "She's miiiiine!" (re: Eggar) in a ghostly manner, and is occasionally seen in shadow or in mirrors. Although in the end it seems just as likely that what happens is because Culp is delusional with a history of instability (this is just hinted at), not because of any supernatural interference.

What starts out looking like a standard haunted-house thriller with some apparent missing scenes and weird dialogue is flavored a few times early on by some psychedelic nudie stuff in Culp's fevered brain. Then around the 45 minute point he walks out of the house after some coitus interruptus (why, we're not sure, although the wife says "If you don't know why I can't tell you"--?!?!), hops on the mystery white horse sometimes lollying about the grounds, and rides it right into the local barn dance/hippie hootenanny/saloon joint. Soon the square dancing turns more abstract, everybody's clothes come off--it's possible the extras were all in some actual dance troupe--and Robert Culp is eventually starkers, and I do mean undeniably full-frontal for QUITE a while, along with everyone else. The subsequent orgy spills out into the forest, with more interpretive-dance moves incorporated. This fascinatingly bizarre and over-the-top sequence reminded me both of the original "Wicker Man" (cuz this dance-slash-orgy-slash-ritual seems to be some sort of regular local pagan practice, if it's not simply Culp's hallucination) and the famous orgy at the titular place in "Zabriskie Point."

Just about everything else in "Name for Evil" is a mess of the type that, as previously mentioned, suggests some production problems that were beyond help in the editing room- -if indeed the editing didn't make things worse. There are movies in which the disjointedness is intentional, to blur reality and fantasy, an approach that would be apt here. But you can tell the awkward assembly and odd gaps aren't part of a plan, but rather a somewhat desperate attempt to weld together a movie whose original plan fell through--for whatever logistical or creative-differences reason.

Egger's character just comes off as a stock adversarial-wife "bitch," though moments suggest we're supposed to be wondering whether we're viewing her through clear eyes or Culp's distorto-vision. That idea seems another casualty of whatever untold crises befell the film-making. Culp really lets it all hang out (yeah ha ha, but I don't just mean it literally) as a hero who might or might not be mad--it's a measure of the film's disorganization that it doesn't seem to know, either.

This certainly isn't a success as horror movie or anything else straightforward. But if you're fond of WTF-inducing curiosities from the medium's counterculture-influenced years, you-- and probably nobody else--will consider it a real find.

In the very beginning of the film, you view a man who walks on the grounds of his home and also looks out of his bedroom windows. This figure of a man vows that no one will live in his home. However, Robert Culp,(John Blake),"The Almost Guys",'04, decides to leave his job in the Big City and go to a home he owns far away from everything. He even threw his TV out the window and wanted to disassociate himself from the world of big business. John Blake takes his beautiful wife Joanna Blake(Samantha Eggar),"The Astronauts's Wife",'99, along with him to enjoy this home in the mountains. Sheila Sullivan(Luanna Baxter),"Hickey & Boggs",'72, plays a very cute and sexy role and goes skinny dipping in a wonderful falls in the mountains. If you love Robert Culp and wish to see his real wife( Sheila Sullivan) at the time of this filming, this is the film for you. The ending of this film will surprise you and make you wonder just what happened!

This movie both seems to have a cliche 60s feel, but also a feel as something ahead of its' time. Samantha Eggar, is wonderful as his sexually estranged, and cynical wife. There are some disjointed sub plots that make it difficult to really appreciate this film. Culp's character is a disillusioned architect going back to an abandoned family mansion to start a new life. The two main characters live in a Connecticut, that looks more like southern California, because it is. The old family home looks like it might be located in northern Michigan instead of the south. You get the impression that the home's original owner was a civil war veteran, but whom the caretaker knew personally. The time line just doesn't make sense. You might think a continuity gap like that would ruin the film, but it doesn't oddly enough. It adds to the dreamlike feel of this wierd movie. The people he encounters in the little community are like some hippie, hillbilly sex cult dominated by one man that fixes both cars, and people. There are some scenes of graphic nudity, that frankly surprised me. Culp does several scenes of full frontal nudity which surprised me for his stature as an actor. Not many other actors of the time were as daring as this. The nude scenes are comical at best, overly stylized, and only add to the surreal quality of this movie. There are some intriguing elements in the film such as discovering a whole closed off section of the old mansion that looks like it escaped the degradation of the rest of the house. Culp's character is in search of something worthy, something real, and does this with believable depth. Good movie that achieved something ethereal most likely by accident, but nonetheless it elevated the film.

This was one poor film. While at times it does keep your attention, the muddled plot is too hard to follow. And besides, it is hard to focus on the plot of a film when Robert Culp is running around NAKED! NO human being should be subjected to such mental torture.

From the beginning city scenes where Robert Culp's character shows his dissatisfaction with the establishment by throwing a TV out a high window (omg it could have smushed somebody) to the funniest orgy you could ever hope to see this movie epitomizes the spirit of the times. I wish I had seen it then it would all have seemed quite sensible and topical. Today it's a marvelous window to the past, Robert Culp wears beads and The Best Nehru jacket and proudly shows his bits during the aforementioned orgy.

The haunted house story is incomprehensible ... well okay the whole movie is pretty much impossible to follow but the visuals and the atmosphere make up for much IMHO. As long as you're looking for an odd slice of history or some giggling nostalgia you can like this movie.

This Bernard Girard's film made for TV is not bad at all, very atmospheric and scary enough to entertain you along seventy four minutes, but maybe not what you first expected. Some elements may remind you THE HAUNTING, made ten years before. If you are used and over used of this kind of stuff, maybe you'll get less pleasure than those who like it only once in a while, that's perfectly normal. However, some scenes are useless, such as this one in the dancing room, it is even boring, why showing this? And you have many more useless sequences for my own taste. Nothing to do with the story. That's my opinion. You can live without it, and leave your living room.

Robert Culp and Samantha Eggar high-tail it from the city into woodsy environs to oversee the renovation of their inherited historic house...a creepy, desolate lakeside place where shadowy phantoms cloaked in darkness whisper orders for the couple to depart.

That overview may sound simple enough, but don't be fooled...A NAME FOR EVIL presents more random points of aimless departure than one could possibly imagine. What results is a discursive, audience distancing clusterf--k, replete with earthy, post-psychedelic erotic inclivities. As stated by other reviewers, it's occasionally suggestive of modest professional contributions, chiefly in response to the cinematography and soundtrack, but despite these niceties, A NAME FOR EVIL remains a lead balloon of carelessly overburdened derangement which goes absolutely nowhere, and takes far too many side-roads getting there.

A metagrobolized rummage of wandering notions, stuffed into a hand-carried wet paper bag. 3.5/10