Movie of the Week: Good Against Evil

Jessica Gordon (Elyssa Davalos) grew up an orphan, her mother dying shortly after childbirth in a mysterious accident, and she never knew who her father was, but despite that, she led a charmed life. She was accepted to a prestigious New York school and became a successful San Francisco fashion designer. Unbeknownst to Jessica, she was born into a Satanic cult who believe she is to bare the devil’s baby and through black magic have guided Jessica’s success. But when Andy Stuart (Dack Rambo) accidentally clips her car, the two fall madly in love, and that is when all the trouble starts.  True love would prevent the Devil’s union with Jessica and any man who has ever gotten close to her has ended up dead. Strange accidents begin to occur and Jessica tries to break it off with Andy, but she has fallen too much in love with him and so the cult jumps into action trying to prevent the two from being together.  Can Andy save Jessica from her fate, or will she become the Devil’s mistress? Watch and find out!  Or don’t as this movie wasn’t all that great.

Premiering on May 22, 1977, this was another TV movie that was intended as a pilot for a series but was not picked up.  To be quite frank, the thing was boring as hell and the story was all over the place.  That isn’t to say it didn’t have potential.  The premise of the series is quite good, an unsuspecting girl is raised by a secret cult to be the Devil’s concubine and the love of her life tries to save her.  With the right treatment, it could have been really fascinating.  Unfortunately, what we got was a cross between The Omen and The Exorcist two popular movies at the time, and neither story line was all that interesting. The first half of the movie is the courtship of Andy and Jessica, where very little of the story moves the plot along.  The second half does pick up a bit where it has Jessica hypnotized to forget Andy and the story shifts from San Francisco to New Orleans.  The cult arranges for Andy to meet up with an old flame whose daughter is possessed, this was a trap to somehow get Andy to forget about Jessica and get back together with his ex, but doesn’t work.  And the cult, led by Jessica’s real father, Mr. Rimmin (Richard Lynch), moves her to a new place.  This is where the movie ends and the series would have begun, with Andy trying to hunt down Jessica on a weekly basis, fighting demonic evil as he goes along.

The production value was not that great, specifically the sound quality, as many of the sound effects used didn’t sound natural to the surroundings. There was some interesting imagery and creepy atmosphere, but not enough to really make the movie that interesting.  The performances were good, but the script and storyline were not well developed, with much of the dialogue feeling forced. For a movie that is called Good Against Evil there is very little of the “good” element exposed.  The audience, I am guessing, is supposed to believe that Andy is the “good” guy, and the cult is the “evil”.  What would have been more interesting is having two cults, one light and one dark using the two leads as pawns in an epic battle for mankind with aspects of both black and white magic coming into play.  But what we got was a jumbled mess.