Equinox (1970) — Triskaidekafiles

EQUINOX

WRITERS: Jack Woods
Based on a story by Mark Thomas McGee

DIRECTOR: Jack Woods

STARRING: Edward Connell as David Fielding
Barbara Hewitt as Susan Turner
Frank Boers Jr. as Jim Hudson
Robin Christopher as Vicki
Jack Woods as Asmodeus

QUICK CUT: A group of friends go off into the woods to have a picnic, and meet up with a beloved college professor.

THE MORGUE

David - A young student who is a curious sort who loves a good mystery.

Susan - A woman who is set up as a blind date with David, and they instantly hit it off.

Jim - David’s friend, and something of a jokester. No pranks here, but always ready with a quip.

Vicki - Jim’s girlfriend.

Asmodeus - A supposed ranger who gives off creepy vibes at the best of times.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! Fall is right around the corner, and since we're close enough to it, now seemed like a good idea to take a look at this lesser known, but not quite obscure, little creature feature from the early 70s, Equinox.

Before I get into this, I got the disc rather close to the posting date, so I have not gone through all the goodies on the Criterion release. It has a lot of features, and an earlier student film cut of the movie, that got reworked into the full feature. So, I'm only talking about the 1970 theatrical version of the film here. I might circle back to this review when I go through everything.

The movie starts off with a bang, literally, as a fireball introduces us to our main character, stumbling around the forest trying to find Susan. Unfortunately he finds her, dead and mostly off camera.

David finds his way to the highway, and is promptly run over by a Cybertaxi with no driver. He survives the hit and run, but enters a catatonic state due to events we will learn shortly. We cut to a year later, where he's in a hospital trying to get help, when a reporter shows up to try and get some answers.

The reporter asks a few questions, and David gets violent. Eventually the doctor puts on a tape of flashbacks to get us to the main movie.

We now go back to Equinox, already in progress...

David was contacted by his geology professor, Doctor Waterman, who had something urgent to show him. David then calls his friend Jim, and he brings his girlfriend Vicky, and a blind date for David with them, to make a picnic out of the whole thing.

They find Waterman's cabin crushed by something, and then run into a ranger with the curious name of Asmodeus. I get audiences in the 70s being less familiar with such names, but c'mon, even if you don't know that name, it still SOUNDS weird, and I’d be a bit suspicious.

Vicky has gone wandering off, and they find a castle in the mountains, that no one can quite remember if it had been there before.

With the cabin crushed, and Waterman nowhere to be seen, they decide to just have their picnic, then make their way back to town.

The group goes to check it out, but then hears some weird creepy laughter coming from a cave...and decide the best idea is to go look for it.

Eventually, they find the source of the laughter, a weird old coot in the cave, offering them an ancient, locked, book. Oh yeah, this is all so very normal.

They pick the lock on the book, it gives off a rotten, sulfuric smell, and yeah, you're gonna get that with ancient helltomes.

David tries to translate the book, but the only Latin he can make out is gibberish. At least, until they realise it's the Lord's Prayer backwards. Red Flags, the novel.

Suddenly, they're pounced by ANOTHER old man, who steals he book and leads them on a chase into the forest. But wait, that's actually Doctor Waterman!

He gets knocked over into a creek, and seems to hit his head, dying. Well, at least they got the book back!

Or did he? When their backs are turned, the doctor disappears, into seemingly thin air, like he was never there at all.

Asmodeus wanders back in the plot, and David wisely hedges around what they've seen so far, since he doesn't know what's really going on here. At least someone is wary of this guy.

The faux ranger, I am not even gonna pretend with this guy, moseys along and finds Susan alone in the woods. He mesmerizes her with his magic ring, and proceeds to assault her, and put her under his thrall. This process has him making faces right into the camera, drooling in slobbery wet kisses onto the lens. It is all deeply unsettling

Asmodeus sees her cross, and stumbles away back into the forest. Susan survived, but she's definitely the worse for wear.

They find some notes by Waterman conveniently left in the book, and learn it is supposedly a "bible of evil" and speaks about the balance between good and evil, and how it's beneficial for each side to counterbalance the other, or some such.

He also writes about experimenting with the spells, being a good scientist, and that's what happened to his cabin, as he somehow summoned a tentacled beast and it crushed it.

The kraken has awakened from the bottom of the trees.

So they decide to continue onward towards the castle, but discover it has disappeared. They speculate this may be one of the "instabilities" Waterman mentioned in his notes.

Vicky is rightly creeped out by all this, but they use some of the stuff from the book to craft a protection charm for each of them, to go along with Susan’s cross

The men climb up to where the castle was, and see a bird disappear in thin air. They realise the castle is hiding behind a split screen effect, and do some simple gags to show it off.

Meanwhile, the women are killing time, when the weird dude from the cave comes running by, chased by a giant clay monkey.

He smashes the guy against the ground, the women scream, and David and Jim come running back. They try to distract the creature by throwing rocks at it, and that works well enough.

The ladies run and the men join them, the beast chasing them into a narrow crevasse like he's hunting for Spartans.

Before deciding on CGI, Beast Wars made attempts to animate the show with stop motion puppetry.

David and Jim hunt around for sticks, and start carving them into spears. And credit to the beast, for having a sense of fair play to give them the time to fashion their crude weaponry.

They use the book as bait, and as the creature tries to claim it, they get in several good shots with their makeshift spears.

Once the beast has fallen, they're sure it's dead, but David says no no, best to go up and see. And you know what? I'm good, let's just go!

Jim goes looking for his camera to get evidence of all this weirdness, but the film has been destroyed. Meanwhile, Susie loses her cross after several establishing shots reminding us it is significant.

And oh, here comes her PTSD flashbacks after being assaulted.

Without her protective sigil, she gives into the earlier spells, and makes the movies on Vicki. David shows up and waves his own protective ward around, until the girl passes out.

Jim runs into Asmodeus on his way back to the rest of the group, and now the mask is off. The ranger insists they give the book to him, and if they're nice, he just might let them leave the forest alive.

I am wearing a hat, just like a normal human man person does.

The group reunites, and Jim tries to tell them to leave the book, but it might be able to help Susan. So he agrees to take the book with them, and they make another attempt to leave.

Except, Asmodeus summons yet another creature to deal with them. Jim tries to instantly hand over the book, and ends up running through the split screen.

Oh, and David at least remembers that Asmodeus was another name for the devil. Took you long enough.

Guys, hey guys, this giant does not seem to be particularly jolly!

Jim does manage to throw the book out of the void, and David goes in after him. I swear, if he runs into a balding ice cream man, or a horde of silver balls…

Dave finds his friend, and as Jim is helped up, he crushes David's sigil, surreptitiously. Plot twist, he's been replaced by Asmodeus.

They go to reunite with the girls, and the ruse doesn't last very well at all. Asmodeus does not do well at imitation.

Just your average college student on zero sleep.

After a punching contest that Asmodeus wins, he reveals his truerr form, and a winged demon swoops down upon the girls to make yet another attempt on getting the book.

The ranger does his kissyface corruption thing on Vicki, as Susan finds David coming to after his fight.

David grabs Susan's cross and scares off the demon, but her own corruption once again tries to take over without the protection.

We eventually catch up with the start of the movie, revealing the explosion was the demon crash landing into a cross in a graveyard.

Susan didn't survive the blast, and once again we have David screaming for Mike Crotch...er, my cross.

Before he runs off into traffic though, David is foretold by the demon that he will not live, in one year and one day, he will be dead. Not as catchy as "Seven days" but it was a simpler time.

The movie ends with Susan, or a demon wearing her face, coming to see David in the hospital to fulfill the prophecy, presumably.

TRISK ASSESSMENt

Video: It looks really good, for an early 70s film. No surprise that Criterion did a good job here.

Audio: Same with the audio.

Sound Bite: “You could grow up to be a real fussbudget." Just because I cannot remember the last time I ever heard that word.

Body Count: A decent amount, for a small cast.

1 - Just a few minutes in, and poor random Susan is already found dead.
2 - Doctor Waterman takes a spill into the creek and dies, although that was likely a conjuration or Asmodeus disguised.
3 - Weird old dude gets pummeled by the monster
4 - Jim dies in the voidspace after whatever Asmodeus did to him.
5 - Vicki gets killed by the devil
6 - We get the context for Susan’s supposed death.

Best Corpse: Watching a claymation body of the old dude getting flung around by the monkey kinda made my day.

Blood Type - B: Despite having no real blood to speak of, save for a few scratches and nicks, I am giving a lotta points to the special effects. Yes, they’re dated by today’s standards. But for a late 1960s student film? They’re pretty good. Heck, they’re pretty good for a decently budgeted studio movie from the same time period.

Drink Up! Every time Asmodeus wanders into the plot

Movie Review: This is a fairly simple movie, and there’s a few things that are just kinda there without explanation, like the castle and spatial pocket around it. Which is fine, since they handwave it enough with “instabilities” in the spellcasting, but it does leave some small, lingering questions. But much like a film professor, I am grading this one on a bit of a curve, based on what I know about it. Again, for a late 60s student film, it’s good enough in that regard, and explains away some of its flaws. It doesn’t excuse it, but I get it. All that aside, the acting is pretty good, especially Asmodeus once he reveals his true alignment. The actor is having a blast, and delivers a fun, devilish performance, if you can excuse the pun. But let’s be honest, the main reason people know this movie and seek it out, are the effects. And they look great, for what they are. The plot also feels a bit messy and jumpy, since they clearly added some framing sequences, and extra footage, to pad things out, and expand on some of the story, and while it’s not terrible, it all doesn’t quite come together. Three out of five jolly green giants.

Entertainment Value: Once again, worth it just to see the effects, provided by a young Dennis Muren, who would go on to so many other movies, making this his first official foray into visual effects. Also, Asmodeus is worth it too. Frank Bonner, nee Boers Jr., who would go on to be in WKRP in Cincinnati, delivers a charming but funny role, always bringing a joke and keeping things light, without making this a flatout comedy, or undercutting the terror/adventure. Three out of five willow branch charms.