A film very different from its' poster!

I remember seeing the VHS video cassette for this film with a beautiful, buxom, naked (or at least topless) dark haired woman lying on her back with her hands held behind her head as if in the throes of surrender/sexual bliss with lightning crackling overhead. It obviously did the trick and intrigued me enough to read the blurb on the back of the case which seemed to belong to an altogether different film. It was probably the semi-pornographic poster which earned the feminist condemnation of the production, I doubt if they'd actually seen the movie they'd feel the same, there's not a hint of eroticism in any of this and indeed Barbara Hershy makes a strong, likable and brave heroine although I do wonder about Eddie Murphy's famous joke of 'Why don't they just get out of the house?'

It is effectively terrifying and I must confess I fast-forwarded through all the rape scenes. Ron Silver is also good in the period before he got typecast playing slimeballs and villains (I guess in 1982 you could still have a beard like that and be a hero?). The ending is effectively ambiguous in keeping with the rest of the film.

As for real life? The scientists did witness and even photograph some strange and as yet unexplained phenomena but nothing definitive and the whole scene where they tried to freeze the Entity was invented. It still stands out though as one of the most puzzling alleged supernatural incidents of all time with no easy explanation.