There are horror movies that get under your skin. And then there’s A Name for Evil, which mostly just gets under your patience.
This 74-minute ghost story, directed by Bernard Girard, stars Robert Culp and Samantha Eggar—both of whom deserved better. And by “better,” I mean a coherent plot, a sense of atmosphere, or even a basic understanding of suspense. What we get instead is a tepid, confused mess that thinks creaking floorboards and casual church weirdness add up to horror. They don’t.
🏚️ The Plot (Kind Of)
Culp plays John Blake, an architect who decides to abandon his career and move with his wife Joanna (Eggar) into his great-grandfather’s dilapidated countryside mansion. Naturally, the house doesn’t want them there—because it’s haunted. Or possibly bored. It’s hard to tell.
John starts hearing voices and seeing spooky visions, which might be ghosts or might be artistic choices with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Meanwhile, the local church—featuring people who clearly didn’t audition so much as wander in from the nearest bus stop—appears to have its own sinister interest in John.
Joanna, the film’s one source of charisma, spends her time wandering in Victorian nightgowns, making meaningful glances at dusty windows, and sighing a lot. One can’t blame her.
👻 What’s Haunting This Movie? (Answer: Everything)
The haunted house subgenre is filled with classics: The Haunting (1963), Burnt Offerings (1976), even The Legend of Hell House (1973). A Name for Evil wishes it belonged to this company, but it feels more like someone tried to tape over The Waltons and failed halfway through.
There’s no tension, no escalation, no real sense of dread. The house does things—like whispering or creaking or creaking while whispering—but it never commits. It’s like the spirit of Grandpa Blake can’t decide whether to murder or mildly inconvenience. One scene even hints that the house might be sexually possessed—but don’t get your hopes up. The film is so skittish about its themes it never dares to be trashy enough to be interesting.
And then there’s the tone. The film isn’t scary, sexy, or weird enough to qualify as camp, art, or exploitation. It just floats there—adrift in its own confused intentions—like an abandoned PBS special with gothic aspirations.
🪦 Robert Culp & Samantha Eggar: Professionals Trapped in Purgatory
To their credit, Robert Culp and Samantha Eggar give it a shot. Culp, often a sharp, commanding presence, is stuck playing a man slowly unraveling for reasons that are never compelling. Eggar does her best to bring intelligence and depth to Joanna, but the film gives her little to do except react to invisible forces and meander around the grounds like she’s in a moody shampoo commercial.
It’s a miracle either of them made it through the shoot without visibly rolling their eyes on camera. These are talented actors wasting their time in a film that couldn’t be bothered to pick a genre, tone, or pace.
🧱 Directionless Direction
Bernard Girard’s direction is either sleepwalking or actively sabotaging itself. Scenes start and stop with no rhythm. Editing choices feel accidental. One minute we’re watching Culp chop wood, the next he’s shirtless in a dream sequence that plays like a deodorant ad shot by Kenneth Anger. Is it horror? Is it satire? Is it a mood piece about toxic masculinity and generational trauma?
Or is it just lazy filmmaking with a supernatural filter and an out-of-tune theremin score?
🕯️ Atmosphere: Drenched in Dust, Devoid of Dread
The house itself—supposedly the film’s center of malevolent energy—looks less like a cursed estate and more like a real estate listing gone stale. There’s some atmospheric fog, a graveyard, and the usual “Is it in my head or in the walls?” whispers, but none of it adds up to anything meaningful.
Dominic Frontiere’s music tries to elevate things, but even a symphony couldn’t save this. The score often feels like it wandered in from a better movie and got trapped.
đź“ť Final Verdict
A Name for Evil is the kind of horror film that isn’t even fun to mock. It’s not bold enough to be outrageous, not skilled enough to be effective, and not deranged enough to earn cult status. It’s just boring. Tediously, frustratingly, soul-crushingly boring.
By the time the credits roll, you’re left with only one thought: the house didn’t want them there—and neither did we.
Rating: 1 out of 5 creaking floorboards.
For completists only. Or insomniacs.
