The Oracle Review

MPAA Rating: R
Released: 1985

The Oracle is an obscure 80's horror flick that quite possibly deserved to remain forgotten. Since it dealt with the subject of the occult and contacting evil dead spirits I raced to my DVD player since I'm a sucker for such films. I was hoping to see something like Witchboard, but instead I got… well, I'm not exactly sure what I got since this is a very odd movie. You'll just have to check out the Feature Attraction to see what I mean.

Jennifer (Caroline Capers Powers) and her husband Rick (Roger Neil) have just moved into a swanky apartment, but little does she know that the former occupant was a gypsy woman that could speak to the dead through the use of a special planchette. Unfortunately the woman crossed paths with a rather ornery demon, and the rest is history… or more specifically, SHE was.

At any rate, Jennifer stumbles across a mysterious glowing box containing the planchette in the apartment basement. Pappas (Chris Maria De Koron), the building superintendent, spreads some light about the prior occupant of her apartment and tells Jennifer that she's welcome to take the planchette if she wishes to.

Naturally, Jennifer does. And she puts it to use during a Christmas Eve party, where her, Rick and a few of their friends decide to use it to contact the dead. Everyone treats the occult device like a simple toy and laughs when it scrawls out "help me," but Jennifer knows better. Her friends and husband may think she is responsible for writing that alarming message, but she knows that some other invisible force guided the planchette.

Meanwhile a huge, repulsive lesbian named Farkas (Pam La Testa) lures a hooker to a hotel and proceeds to brutally carve her up with a knife. The scene is quite explicit and will definitely thrill gore hounds, but here's where the director's incompetence really makes its presence known:

Blood is spurting from the victim with more ferocity than Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. It's soaking the bed and splashing all across distant walls and furniture… a real mess, right? Yet somehow through this entire massacre not one speck of blood finds its way onto the killer's clothing, who was straddling the victim as she slashed away!

What does a psycho killer lesbian have to do with a movie about evil spirits? A damn good question! But don't worry, while the two seem completely unrelated you'll find that they are merged before the movie's end.

The rest of The Oracle sees Jennifer becoming increasingly alarmed and haunted by the demonic summoning device. When she or anyone else tries to dispose of the tool, the evil spirit retaliates in often-brutal ways. Rick believes his wife is both obsessed and touched in the head, and blames her for the cryptic messages the tools writes as well as the tool's constant reappearances in the apartment after various disposal attempts.

Little does he know that the only way he or his wife will ever find peace again is to uncover the hidden secrets of the spirit and unleash it so that it can achieve its dubious desires.

The Oracle really sounded like a good idea on paper, but unfortunately this film shares much more in common with cheap grindhouse offerings than any real horror film. If you enjoy films like Witchboard, don't make the same mistake I did and snatch this one too, because I can almost guarantee you will be disappointed.

Many of the actors involved with this film never took part in another movie again. Enough said about the acting since that should be a good indication of how horrific it was.

The Oracle tried to bring some interesting ideas to the table, but ultimately it has such a low-budget, sleazy and violent feel to it that it's impossible to take it seriously. The violence itself didn't turn me off since I can enjoy a good bloody horror flick, but good is the operative word; as the ending credits of The Oracle began to roll the only feeling I was left with was a strong desire to take a shower.

Movie rating: 3 stars

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Other Resources:

The Oracle IMDb Page

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