LA FORCE

Enjoyable, but unexceptional mystery/horror about a potent Mesoamerican relic

An Aztec idol, Destacatyl, ends up in the hands of three high School students on the coast near Los Angeles. After an unexpected death, the trio seeks the aid of a tabloid writer, but it’s her ex-beau who’s fascinated by the artifact and the evident power thereof. Havoc ensues.

"The Power” (1984) mixes the evil spirit shenanigans of “The Exorcist” (1973) with the misshapen man-beast bits of “Altered States” (1980) while the faith-in-the-idol angle is done better in the future “Wendigo” (2001). It’s one of those ‘almost’ movies that almost works enough.

Both Lisa Erickson as blonde teenager Julie and Suzy Stokey as brunette journalist Sandy are effective on the female front. Meanwhile the three teens investigating the spooky happenings is reminiscent of Scooby-Doo, albeit without the dog.

Unfortunately, there’s just not enough to push the flick beyond mediocre. It needed a rewrite to flush out the potential, but that takes time and time is money in the movie biz. Still, I enjoyed it well enough for a streamlined mystery/horror from the early ’80s.

The film runs 1 hour, 24 minutes, and, was shot in Redondo Beach, California, which is just southwest of Los Angeles.

GRADE: C+

Hi, so this started out well enough; same as a dozen other evil idol dolls, but they made the possession/death interesting. About 1/2 way through, and the reason I went out of my way to come write this, either something happened post release or they intentionally made all the characters stop turning on lights as a cheap way to try to make it scary. Either way, I hate constant unlighted sets. It was a 3 if intentional, 4 if technical issue. Cheers