Very disappointing...

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Jennifer (Caroline Capers Powers) is a young woman who moves with husband Ray (Roger Neil) into an apartment formerly occupied by a medium. She finds the womans' planchet and is able to make contact with a restless spirit. Naturally, this spirit wants to use her for vengeance' sake. Jennifer is able to see images of the people that killed the man, including a corpulent, demented, transvestite, lesbian killer for hire named Farkas (Pam La Testa). Jennifer then sets about trying to solve the man's murder.This is about on a par with the other crude, cheese ball horror pictures that legendary exploitation director Roberta Findlay ("Tenement") made in the 1980s. It's kind of slow to get started, but around the 34 minute mark things start to pick up, as Pappas (Chris Maria De Koron), the building super, fools around with the planchet, and begins to see weird little creepy-crawlies all over him. Ultimately, the movie is garbage, but Findlay herself would be the first to admit it. Therefore, it does have a certain undeniable bad movie charm, at least if you totally dig this kind of thing to begin with.Capers Powers is remarkably sincere in the lead, although she'll probably put off some viewers with the amount of screaming that she does. Neil plays the husband as such a jerk that one has to wonder why Jennifer ever married the guy. La Testa is great fun in her antagonistic role, especially in a scene that's probably just designed to show what kind of person Farkas is, as she slaughters a hooker in cold blood. The corpse effects and the gore are all wonderfully tacky. One of the best scenes occurs when Farkas tries to run Jennifer down with a car. Co-producer Walter E. Sear composed the decent music score.An entertaining viewing for the undemanding.Six out of 10.

Sweet, fragile young lady Jennifer (decently played by fetching brunette Caroline Capers Powers) and her insensitive jerk husband Ray (a supremely irritating portrayal by Roger Neil) move into an apartment that was previously inhabited by an old gypsy medium. Jennifer uses the old gypsy medium's leftover Ouija board to contact the unrestful and vindictive spirit of a murdered businessman; said angry and deadly spirit uses Jennifer as a means to an end to exact a harsh revenge on his killers. Boy, does this gloriously ghastly nickel'n'dime bilge possess all the essential so-utterly-wrong-they're-paradoxically-right ingredients to rate highly as a definite four-star stinkeroonie: the hopelessly ham-fisted (mis)direction by notorious Grade Z grindhouse maestro Roberta Findlay, the meandering narrative, a generic hum'n'shiver ooga-booga synthesizer score by Walter E. Sear and Michael Litovsky, shoddy, but excessive gore, mostly dreadful acting from a lame no-name cast (Pam La Testa easily cops the top thespic dishonors with her delightfully overblown performance as hostile, ugly, nasty fat lesbian psychopath Farkas), rubbery make-up f/x, crude cinematography, hilariously bungled murder set pieces (one guy stabs himself to death with a knife while imagining that he's covered with laughably fake-looking giant bugs!), ragged editing, R. Allen Leider's talky and plodding script, a total lack of tension and creepy atmosphere, and the uproariously fumbled climax all add up to create a choice chunk of wonderfully rancid and wretched 80's cheese that's entertaining for all the wrong reasons. The flavorsome yuletide setting and authentically grimy New York City locations that include the once infamous 42nd Street in all its former scuzzy neon slime urban splendor further enhance this clunker's considerable shabby charm. An amusingly awful hoot.

I put this in a few days before Christmas and, to my surprise, it is set during the Xmas and New Year's holidays. So I officially have a new entry into my holiday themed horror flicks! Jennifer (Caroline Capers Powers) and husband Ray (Roger Neil) move into a new apartment once inhabited by a psychic medium. Naturally, Jennifer locates a trinket that communicates with the dead and they take her up on the offer. She is contacted by one William Graham, an industrialist who committed suicide some weeks earlier. Jennifer has visions of the true culprits, but no one believes her!Filmed entirely in NYC, this Roberta Findlay cheapie really doesn't have much going for it. Still, I was entertained for all of the wrong reasons. There is lots of goofy gore and bad acting on display. Lead Powers is attractive and a decent actress, but never made another film (how does that happen?). The real reasons to see this flick are the DVD extras on the Media Blasters release. There is a hilarious half hour interview with Findlay about the film where she covers everything about the film from casting the big lesbian to her love of Jack Daniels to the South's love of horror films ("It's the only good thing about it!"). There is also a audio commentary where Findlay pulls no punches. I love listening to her talk.What is interesting is that this film came out a year before the more celebrated (and admittedly better) WITCHBOARD. They basically are the exact same film and it makes me wonder if Kevin Tenney saw this and thought, "I can do that a lot better."

A young newly married woman, Jennifer, stumbles across a writing tool called the Oracle, which is an Ouija device that was used by the previous occupant of their apartment. For some entertainment with her friends she brings out the device for a séance, where she unwillingly gets in contact with a revengeful spirit who was murdered. No one believes her that the spiritual connection with the medium is real and to make matters worse the mystery gets more dangerous when she calls the number the spirit gave her. It leads her to his wife and now the killers of her husband are now tracking down Jennifer.The curse of the 80s horror cheese (that's extremely cheesy by the way) strikes again in this ridiculously dumb and cheaply done bungle of lightweight schlock. Despite being a rather ghastly piece, it's oddly watchable and to a certain degree enjoyable junk. Honestly the premise is quite unique and there are inventive ideas cooked up, on the other hand the budget and the execution doesn't entirely complement the vision. But then who am I to complain when it didn't cop out on the splatter. It's grisly, outlandish and terribly campy stuff! Watch the blood fly across the screen. An ominously brooding atmosphere with a murky colour scheme and jittery sound effects adds to the fun. A blunt synthesizer packed score springs into action and the shoddy special effects (like the rotting corpse and a green floating skull) are unintentionally funny.The direction by Roberta Findlay is simply clumsy, but her no-bars approach means there's a certain randomness that makes those clammy and plodding moments move on in a hurry. Well, some moments do feel like they're trapped in slow motion. They are basically those chase scenes. It might be light on suspense, but there are oddball thrills in minor spurts that have meagre potency. The cruddy performances are pretty dry. The constant squealing from the lead Caroline Capers Powers can get somewhat frustrating, but overall she was fair. Pam La Testa makes quite an impression as the bulky butch killer with a deep, no-nonsense attitude."The Oracle" is a corn-filled slice of 80s low-budget horror that's craptastic.