The Entity is a film based on the same-named novel released in 1978. The novel is a recounting of a true story, Doris Bither’s story. The novel and screenplay were both written by Frank De Felitta.
It is based on the strange events that occurred in Doris Bither’s life that had no explanation. Despite the fact that the film was shot and slated for release in 1981, it was not released until September 1982 in the United Kingdom and February 1983 in the United States.
Doris claimed to have been raped by the ghosts of three men, but paranormal investigators never looked into that portion of her account. They were more interested in poltergeist activities, such as unusual lights, unpleasant odors, cold zones, and falling objects at random. However, the film’s main focus is on rape scenes, which may make some viewers uncomfortable.
Sidney J. Furie’s take on the story is arguably as much about early-eighties America as it is about the supernatural. Carla wants to be taken seriously as a single mother in a patriarchal society, where people believe she is fabricating rape claims to gain attention. Regrettably, this is still the unfortunate state of affairs when it comes to rape complaints and cases. And, according to medical experts, the solution to her issues is to find a strong male to assist her.
The Entity is one of the few films based on true events that manages to capture the feeling of hopelessness that its real-life counterparts must have felt, but it still comes up short of the horrific torment that Bither was subjected to until her death. Let us now go into the unusual incidents in Doris’ life as captured on film.
There Is No Escape From Something You Cannot See – The Entity (1982)
The film starts with a glimpse of Carla’s busy life. She works in an office, then attends a night class, then returns to her Los Angeles house, where she unlocks the front door, checks on her two little sleeping children, Julie and Kim, and welcomes her teenage son Billy (David Labiosa), and retires to her bedroom upstairs.
All these scenarios have a fast tempo and a sense of a woman, who is always on the move. Carla is a single mother who works hard to provide for herself and her family, despite the fact that she is struggling to pay the rent. She is the personification of female empowerment and advancement.
These rapid moments and highlights of her portray her as a strong independent woman comes to a halt the minute she enters her bedroom. The scene changes from a fast-paced one to one with a sense of foreboding and caution. Carla is attacked and raped in her own bed, bringing all that forward motion to a juddering halt, with a startling, harsh physicality that feels almost like an assault on the audience as well.
Carla’s assailant is nowhere to be found by the time the three youngsters rush into the room. Billy tries to comfort his mother by saying, “You just had a bad dream, that’s all,” since he didn’t find anyone in the house. But the attacks don’t stop. When her friend decides to stay over, the spirit cannot attack her, which worsens things for her the next day.
Her car gets possessed and she loses control of it as she drives headfirst into the oncoming traffic. Barbara has done a great job expressing the distress one would feel in a similar situation. This incident finally prompts Carla to seek professional help. She meets with Dr. Sneiderman and tentatively agrees to therapy.
He doesn’t seem to believe her experiences, even when she gets attacked and assaulted in the bathroom. She has multiple bruises in places she can’t reach on her own. Still, he believes they are self-inflicted despite their position in places she can’t reach.
Carla is driven home byDr. Sneiderman meets her children. She tells him about the sexual and physical violence she endured as a kid and as an adolescent. She also tells him of the horrific death of her first husband and as well of her teenage pregnancy. Dr. Sneiderman feels her paranormal encounters are delusions caused by her previous psychological trauma, but he agrees to keep an open mind at her request. Carla is attacked again shortly after.
Sneiderman leaves, this time in front of her children. It is a horrifying and gruesome scene that leaves you reeling in shock, disgust, and discomfort. When her son tries to intercede, he is struck by what looks like lightning and breaks his wrist. The real-life Carla Moran’s teenage son reported a particularly severe incident in which the malicious Entity threw Carla and knocked her out. He attempted to help her out but was thrown himself, fracturing his arm.
The next day, Carla attends a staff meeting hosted by Dr. Weber, a colleague of Sneiderman’s, to discuss her case. As soon as she leaves, Weber expresses his conviction that the Moran family’s experiences are the result of a mass delusion caused by Carla’s disordered psyche, sexual frustration, and tendency to masturbate.
Dr. Sneiderman and his colleagues believe that Carla’s attacker is only a psychic projection of Carla’s prior trauma and doesn’t think much of her experience. Carla is misled into having an orgasm while sleeping by the Entity, who appears to stroke her nipples. Interestingly, it is not her natural breast shown in the film.
The visual effects team created a prosthetic breastplate and whole body that could be “indented” from below, pretending fingers that “touch” Carla’s body during the scenes where the Entity assaults her at night, touching her breast while she is sleeping. Dr. Sneiderman wants Carla to check herself into a psychiatric facility for monitoring the next day.
She refuses his suggestion and becomes enraged when Dr. Sneiderman suggests she has incestuous affections for her son, which is quite understandable. Barbara does a great job portraying the emotions of a helpless woman who no one believes. The frustration resonates with the audience as well.
The scene changes, and we see Carla having a conversation with her friend Cindy. This leads us to the scene when Cindy witnesses an attack on Carla and finally starts to believe her. They decide to look into the possibility of a supernatural assault by going to the bookstore. Carla meets two parapsychologists while browsing at the local bookstore, and she persuades them to come to her house.
They are initially suspicious, but after seeing multiple unexplained happenings, they agree to investigate the house with the help of their team leader, Dr. Cooley. They are, initially, able to capture the lightning-caused by the Entity on camera, and later on, all the three psychologists witness it in real life.
Dr.Sneiderman appears during their study and tries to persuade Carla that the manifestations are in her head, but she dismisses him. Carla begins to relax now that she knows her case is being treated seriously. Jerry Anderson, her lover, pays her a visit, and she is subjected to a particularly horrible attack, which he observes.
After hearing the commotion, Carla’s son enters the room and assumes Jerry is harming her, driving him to attack Jerry. Jerry is so distressed by the event that he breaks their relationship later at the hospital. He tells Dr. Sneiderman that he saw her get attacked, he clearly says they were touching her breast, but there was no one there. Yet, Sneiderman doesn’t believe them. He still believes that they are just giving in to her manifestations.
Carla accepts to participate in an intricate experiment conducted by Cooley’s team because she is desperate for a solution, to find a way to end this nightmare. To entice the creature into a trap and freeze it with liquid helium, the team of psychologists builds a full-scale replica of her residence.
Dr.Sneiderman tries unsuccessfully to persuade Carla to leave before the experiment begins, confirming an unusual personal interest in her predicament. When the creature appears, it takes control of the helium jets and uses them on Carla. She proudly confronts it, declaring that while it may kill her, it will never possess her. The tanks explode at this precise moment, flooding the premises with liquid helium.
Just in time, Sneiderman arrives to save her. They see the Entity has been caught in a massive pile of ice as they glance back. However, it rips loose and vanishes almost instantly, but Sneiderman understands Carla had been telling the truth all along. Despite the ice block’s destruction, Dr. Cooley believes she has a crucial witness in Dr. Weber. Much to her dismay, Weber chooses to believe that he was not present when the incident occurred.
The next day, Carla returns to her home. She is greeted by a demonic voice saying, “Welcome home, cunt,” as the front door slams shut on its own. She quietly opens the door, exits the house, and drives away with her family.
In the closing scene, Carla and her family are shown to have relocated to Texas. Carla continues to be attacked by the Entity, albeit the frequency and severity of her attacks have decreased.
According to a web-page post by the Connecticut Paranormal Research Society titled “The Entity in the Carla Moran Story,” “The woman moved five times, but the attacking Entity followed her. She eventually moved further away. As she moved, the phenomena diminished, and after about two years, the attacks stopped altogether.”
A Violent And Invisible Ghost – The Entity
The Entity was a violent and invisible ghost or demon with characteristics similar to medieval incubuses and poltergeists – the creature is famed for its repeated rape of the female protagonist of the film. While the events are highly controversial, they are allegedly based on actual incidents.
The Entity is a supernatural antagonist of the film and the real-life Carla Moran. It is a pure evil force that brutally rapes and attacks her on a regular basis. According to her, the Entity is three foul-smelling men. It started with just one, but the other two appeared after the bathroom scene.
The two smaller men hold her down while the third, bigger man, attacks her. It is something pure evil that one seems to know nothing about. Even Carla, who gets attacked by it on a regular basis, doesn’t know much about it. It is a nameless, faceless, shapeless entity, but it seems to have a smell. As captured by the parapsychologists, the lightning that it produces shows the shape of a man’s head as well.
It is thought to be a manifestation of the deep psychological trauma that she has endured. Some believe that The Entity could be Carla’s first husband’s spirit or a demon (like many other nightmare spirits, the Entity could be tied to the phenomenon of sleep paralysis (though it has clearly been given a supernatural flair for the film).
It tries to repeatedly assert its dominance over Carla by attacking her physically and sexually. It also uses its power to attack those closest to her, like her children. It leaves her feeling emotionally and physically helpless since no one believes she is getting attacked by something that can’t be seen.
Why should you watch The Entity (1982)?
Film scholar Daniel Kremer had interpreted the Entity, calling it a parable for female sexual victimhood. While talking about Carla, he says that she is a woman who “goes head-to-head with a gaggle of men (including the “entity” itself). If the men of the film do not undermine her credibility or sanity, they objectify her, exploit her victimhood, belittle her ability to take control of her unfortunate circumstances, and ultimately give her the dignity of a glorified lab ‘rat’.
It is a brutal film that exposes you to the struggle and trauma that females face when in danger. We continuously see Carla getting belittled by the professionals around her, but she refuses to give up the fight. She tries to find ways to make her pain, her endless nightmare, stop.
It is a brilliant movie that uses a supernatural entity while showcasing the overt and covert struggles faced by women in professional and medical spaces. It made me highly curious about the actual story behind the film as well.
Barbara Hershey did a great job portraying Carla’s vulnerable yet helpless but strong-willed character, who wants to move on. Her acting made the audience not only feel her frustration but her terror and helplessness as well.
The Entity is a sad modern ghost story that dramatizes the dreadful concessions and sacrifices that women make every day just to get by in a man’s society, in a home environment comparable to William Friedkin’s The Exorcist and even Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist. It is a must-watch but only if one can stomach graphic sexual and physical assault.