The Entity (1982): When Trauma Gets Supernatural

#MeBoo

If the horror genre has taught us anything, it’s that sometimes the most terrifying monsters aren’t the ones with fangs or claws—they’re the invisible ones that society refuses to acknowledge. Sidney J. Furie’s 1982 supernatural thriller The Entity takes this concept and cranks it up to the proverbial eleven, delivering what might be the most brutally effective metaphor for sexual trauma and patriarchal gaslighting ever committed to celluloid.

Welcome Home, Indeed

Based on the allegedly true case of Doris Bither (because what scary film worth its salt doesn’t claim to be “based on true events”?), The Entity follows Carla Moran (Barbara Hershey), a single mom who becomes the victim of repeated supernatural sexual assaults by an invisible force. If that premise sounds exploitative… buckle up, babe—because this flick walks a tightrope between exploitation and profound social commentary that would make even today’s more enlightened auteurs break into a cold sweat.

Barbara Hershey in The Entity

Within its first five minutes, we’re introduced to Carla—working, studying, mothering, existing in perpetual motion. She’s the living embodiment of female independence in the post-feminist ’70s, and the patriarchy, it seems, simply cannot abide. By minute six, all that forward momentum crashes to a halt as she’s brutally assaulted in her own bed. The message couldn’t be clearer if it wore a neon sign: women’s lib comes with a price tag.

What follows is a masterclass in institutional gaslighting. When Carla seeks help, she’s met with a psychological establishment (led by Ron Silver’s Dr. Sneiderman) determined to frame her experiences as delusions born from past trauma. “You just had a bad dream,” her son initially reassures her—echoing the dismissive refrain women have heard for centuries when reporting assault. Even as physical evidence mounts—bruises, bite marks, witnesses—the experts circle their wagons, with one psychiatrist bluntly diagnosing: “She’s masturbating. This entire circus she’s invented to cover up what every little girl does.”

Me Too? More like Me Boo.