The Oracle

The Oracle

1985 "A Power That Is Ancient."
The Oracle
The Oracle

The Oracle

4.2 | 1h34m | R | en | Horror

A murder victim reaches out from beyond the grave in an attempt to possess the body of a young woman who has moved into his old apartment.

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4.2 | 1h34m | R | en | Horror , Thriller , Crime | More Info
Released: May. 01,1985 | Released Producted By: , Country: Budget: 0 Revenue: 0 Official Website:
Synopsis

A murder victim reaches out from beyond the grave in an attempt to possess the body of a young woman who has moved into his old apartment.

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Cast

Irma St. Paule

Director

Roberta Findlay

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Scott LeBrun 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.
Woodyanders 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.
lost-in-limbo 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.
thelion23 The Oracle, directed by Roberta Findlay wasn´t THAT bad after all. Ok, it was a bit dull at times but I´ve seen worse films, in fact many of them.The film itself was never really scary but it had its share of gore, so if you´re looking for that you´ll probably be satisfied with what you see.The production company (Laurel Films,Inc) for the film was also interesting, since the same company is the one behind George A. Romero´s zombie movies if I´m not mistaking.The version I saw myself was the Dutch release by New York Video. Comparing to the pictures on the back cover, this release seems to be cut since many shots were never to be seen in the movie, as the killing of the lady in the elevator-I didn´t see any blood in the film itself but on the back cover there was a still picture of it.I´ll give this film **½ of *****. An ok way to waste 94 minutes.