Spirits (1990)

Very disappointing...

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This straight-to-video flick from Fred Olen Ray has not a single original bone in it's body. It starts out by stealing the premise of "The Legend of Hell House", dips into "The Exorcist" and then settles into a rip-off of "The Evil Dead". Robert Quarry headlines as a scientist leading an expedition to investigate a haunted house, bringing along psychic Brinke Stevens and a couple of other folks. This isn't exactly poorly done, but the film's budget just doesn't help it. The haunted house is just your average suburban home, and most of the film is just shot in broad daylight. While all this is going on, we meet priest Erik Estrada (yes, really) who is haunted by visions of, among other things, stark naked nun Michelle Bauer and scolding, not naked nun Carol Lynley. Eventually we learn how these two threads fit together, and the house is overrun by possessed people trying to kill other people. This should be awful, but somehow it's not. Maybe it's that the cast is not terrible, maybe it's that Ray borrows so many elements from good movies that some of them just work. It's by no means a good film, but it's no complete waste of time.

Attempting to investigate a supposedly haunted house, a psychic and her staff soon come under attack by a group of demons that live in the place and must rely on a priest with knowledge of the demons to stop them.This is a really enjoyable and absolutely entertaining slice of prime cheese that gets highly enjoyable over time. One of the best facets about it is the utterly contrived plot that still manages to be quite entertaining and enjoyable during it's time due to the remarkable way it keeps the story lines moving along and staying interesting during it's duration. The initial start with the investigation is kept remarkably light and watchable considering the subject matter at hand, as the darkness it goes for is decidedly new and original enough to serve as the backdrop for the central mystery surrounding the house. These scenes, including the many walk-throughs that give us a great glimpse of the setting and how inherently creepy it is, serves as the basic formula for introducing the film's biggest plus, it's series of inherently cheesy and enjoyable hallucination scenes that crop up in this, which are truly fun for their cheesy attitude, rampant sleaze and demented qualities that truly make these scenes so much fun. The nude nun-demons tormenting the priests, the sex dreams with the former residents and all the possession sequences that play as straight-rips from other films that wonder throughout the running time before eventually winding up with the cheese-filled overload of a finale where the original demon manifestation is allowed to take shape and this one really gets a lot of fun. Still, despite all the cheese there's some flaws in this, mainly due to the fact that the film doesn't have a lot of action in here. Despite all the frequent and varied dreams and hallucinations present, this one still tends to waste endless time dissecting and analyzing what's going on without doing anything about it. This leaves the film with long stretches of time where nothing happens, and with the lower body count on display this manages to become quite infuriating if there's not a lot of extraneous action going on. As well, the cheese for some can be quite hit-or-miss with a lot of scenes not really working on more serious-minded individuals with a low tolerance or acceptance for such material that pops up here only due to individual merits rather than what the film does. Otherwise, there's still a lot to like in this one.Rated R: Graphic Language, Nudity, Language, sex scenes and themes of child incest and rape.

I have enjoyed similar B movies like Evil Toons, because they are just silly fun, with a little T and A, and cheesy, but cool fx to laugh at. Spirits takes itself seriously for the most part, and it just doesn't have the script to pull it off. And what I always have to nail a film like this on is the lack of nudity, only one brief breast shot from what I remember.The story is just a mish mash of better films, and the gore and makeup effects don't come in until towards the end, and they are just average at best. By the time they came I already lost interest. Sorry to say it doesn't deliver the goodies, so I'd skip it, unless you collect everything like myself, and are a scream queen completist.

Four researchers (ghost hunter Robert Quarry, psychic Brinke Stevens, skeptical Kathrin Lautner and Oliver Darrow) decide to investigate a supposedly haunted house with a history of murders that may have been committed by former mass murderer/rapist Andre Picard. A demon/ghost eventually possess them one by one, causing such things as Brinke driving a nail through her hand and Darrow having a sex dream with a redheaded succubus (played by Kaitlin Hopkins, the daughter of Shirley Knight). Carol Lynley is wasted as a nun and Erik Estrada is awful as a doubting priest who comes to the rescue a la THE EXORCIST.The completely contrived plot is made damn near unbearable by the lack of gore, interesting characters, credible dialogue or anything else to make it worth watching. The demon/possession make-up is alright, but wasted, as is the great John Vulich/Everett Burrell designed demon creature at the end. Michelle Bauer however does liven things up a bit as a naked demon who strips out of her nun costume and tries to seduce Estrada by reminding him, "You knew your way around a p@$$y pretty good for a priest!" Look for a very obvious boom shadow on Brinke's face during the kitchen scene.Score: 2 out of 10