Equinox

1970

1h 22m

IMDb RATING

5.1/10

YOUR RATING

Rate

POPULARITY

Play trailer

2 Videos

25 Images

Adventure

Horror

Due to their possession of an ancient mystic book, four friends are attacked by a demon while on a picnic and find themselves pitched into a world of evil that overlaps their own. The film was originally made in 1967 by Dennis Muren as The Equinox: Journey into the Supernatural. Jack Woods was hired to shoot additional footage and expand on Muren's work.

Directors

Jack Woods

Dennis Muren

Writers

Mark Thomas McGee(story by)

Jack Woods(screenplay by)

Stars

Edward Connell

Barbara Hewitt

Jack Woods

See production, box office & company info

Videos2

Trailer
Watch Equinox (1970) - Trailer HD 1080p
Teaser
Watch EQUINOX TRAILER

Photos25

Top cast

David Fielding

Susan Turner

Asmodeus

Jim Hudson

Vicki

Reporter Sloan

Dr. Arthur Watermann

Doctor Branson

Nurse

Old man in cave

Irving L. Lichtenstein

James Dwion

The Orderly

Forrest J. Ackerman

Doctor on Tape Recorder (voice) (uncredited)

Jack H. Harris

Detective Harrison (uncredited)

Chuck Niles

Reporter Sloan (voice) (uncredited)

Jim Duron

The Green Giant

Directors

Jack Woods

Dennis Muren

Writers

Mark Thomas McGee(story by)

Jack Woods(screenplay by)

All cast & crew

Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

User reviews1

Review

Featured review

5/10

**_The beginning of cabin-in-the-woods horror, sort of_** Four college-aged youths go out to the woods north of Los Angeles to visit their professor’s cabin and have a picnic, but they stumble upon a grimoire and several malevolent creatures are inadvertently unleashed. “Equinox” mixes “Mysterious Island” (1961) with HP Lovecraft and the low-budget weirdness of, say, The Twilight Zone. It was originally made as “The Equinox... A Journey Into the Supernatural,” a 71-minute flick made for $6500 by Dennis Muren and Mark Thomas McGee in 1967. However, after impressing a producer, a director was hired to shoot additional footage (11-12 minutes) and expand it into a more acceptable feature film with a shortened title. This took a couple of years and explains the 1970 release date. The director enlisted was Jack Woods, who happens to play the weirdo ranger. The colorful special effects in the third act are surprisingly good, all things considered, with the stop-motion stuff reminiscent of “Planet of the Dinosaurs” (1977). Perhaps the best effect is a green giant impressively executed via forced perspective. While the professor’s cabin is barely a factor, this was the precursor to the cabin-in-the-woods trope, along with the contemporaneous “Night of the Living Dead.” It can be traced back earlier, if you consider flicks like “The Killer Shrews” from 1959. The exploration of good and evil is interesting and the flick obviously influenced Raimi’s first two “Evil Dead” pictures from the 80s. Unfortunately, there’s too much marking time in the midsection and, except for the ranger, the principal actors are dull with the two females being bland and unmemorable. One of the young guys, by the way, is Frank Bonner, who went on to play Herb Tarlek on WKRP. It runs 1 hour, 22 minutes, and was principally shot in areas north of Hollywood, such as Tujunga Canyon, Bronson Caves in Griffith Park and La Cañada-Flintridge. GRADE: C

Wuchak24 Sep, 2024