30 Best Hidden Gem Horror Movies Perfect For Halloween

A lot of horror films love to use the old “based on a true story” chestnut, but most are blatant marketing ploys that can’t conjure an ounce of believability. The Entity doesn’t follow that trend, and it lands like an unvarnished slap across the face.

Inspired by reports from the 1970s of a single mother who suffered a series of relentless and violent hauntings, Barbara Hershey (in a career-best performance) plays a Los Angeles woman tormented and graphically assaulted by an unseen force. At her rope’s end, she turns to psychiatrists, who dismiss her, and to paranormal researchers, who believe her but can’t prove her right.

Directed by Sidney J. Furie, a journeyman better known for crime thrillers and espionage action, The Entity’s strength lies in Furie's approach. He doesn’t tackle the subject with stylised lighting or eerie sound design, and the threat isn’t embodied by some figure destined to become a Halloween mask. Instead, we never truly see the entity - only movement, sparks, and destruction - and the terrifying nature of it is that it can attack anywhere, anytime. Hershey is never safe, and neither is the audience. No detail is spared or left to the imagination. The movie doesn’t want to create goosebumps; it wants to horrify.

This is a subversive ghost story, not about mood or atmosphere, but about pure fight-or-flight terror. Perhaps that’s why The Entity wasn’t embraced like several of its classic peers, but if you’re looking to uncover a raw shocker with an Oscar-calibre centre, look no further.