The Oracle (1985)

(On Cable TV, December 2022) I’m sure someone, somewhere, will be in the mood for The Oracle today. It is, by almost all measures, a wretched film. Low production values, unimaginative premise, terrible acting, unintentionally funny moments… wait, did we just say unintentionally funny? Well, yes: this is the kind of junk filled with clichés, rubber-faced monsters, inept suspense sequences and awful production values. Nothing to cheer for, except when they combine to make up something with more entertainment as criticism than enjoyment. There’s an added attraction, I suppose, in watching bad movies from an earlier age: much of what’s acutely terrible about The Oracle becomes charming under a period sheen of analog editing machines, film grain, practical effects, and much lower horror literacy. People actually had to work hard to get such lousy results, but director Roberta Findlay was known for churning out such drivel in copious quantities. The Oracle jumps straight from a warning-from beyond-the-grave to latex monsters killing people and doesn’t really bother to make sense, a feeling of aimless drifting that arguably enhanced the result. The catch is that you have to be in a generous mood or have a built-in liking for cheap horror films in order to get the most out of The Oracle. For everyone else, there are better choices out there.