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Answer: Nicolas Mallet is a failure. A teller in a bank, everyone walks all over him. Then his friend, a writer who's books no one likes, has a plan to change his life. Our hero tells his boss he is quitting. He intends to spend the rest of his life making a great deal of money and sleeping with a great many women. And he manages to do just that.

If it were not for the amount of death (murder/suicide/natural causes) in the film, this would be a farce. There are numerous jabs at marriage, politics, journalism and...life.

Jean-Louis Trintignant is a likable amoral rogue. Romy Schneider is at her most appealing. Definitely worth a look.

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Answer: A lot is dated in this episode (just like most Twilight Zone episodes), such as the Woman's incredibly sexist military "uniform." And some things are so unbelievable, like the easy availability of clean water. Still, consider the year this was made and the time, and you quickly understand why this episode is so special as you watch. It has a nice sense of hope, something missing from a lot of Twilight Zones, as well as an interesting female character (despite the fact that she rarely speaks), something else rare on the Twilight Zone. "Two" is a great example of how the Twilight Zone, in just over 20 minutes, could pack more emotion and drama than most two hours movies today. And it's great to see two people who became American icons so early in their careers.

Problem: OPTIONS:
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Answer:
At the beginning of the film, you might double-check the DVD cover and re-read the synopsis a couple of times, but no worries. It's NOT "Memoirs of a Geisha" that you purchased; just a movie with an intro that is much more classy and stylish than it has any right to be. Still, the opening is by far the best thing about the entire movie, as it shows how in the year 1840 a Samurai sword master catches his wife committing adultery. He decapitates the two lovers before doing some hara-kiri (ritual suicide through disembowelment). Cut to present day, when the American Ambassador in Japan welcomes a befriended family and drives them up to the same house where the aforementioned slaughter took place nearly one and a half century ago. From then onwards, this becomes a seemingly routine haunted house flick yet the utterly retarded and implausible script still makes it somewhat exceptional. Let's start with the good aspects, namely the original Japanese setting and the presence of the delicious Susan George who is my all-time favorite British horror wench (well, together with Britt Eckland, Linda Hayden and Ingrid Pitt). The bad aspects simply include that the screenplay is incoherent, imbecilic beyond repair and full of supposedly unsettling twists that only evoke laughter. The restless spirits of the house soon begin to entertain themselves by perpetrating into the bodies of the new tenants and causing them to do and say all sorts of crazy stuff. The spirit of the massacred adulterous woman particularly enjoys squeezing into Susan's ravishing booty and transforming her into a lewd seductress! In this "possessed" state, she even lures the American ambassador outside to have sex in the garden of a high society diner party full of prominent guests. So, strictly spoken, it's not really "evil" that dwells in the house; just a trio of sleazy ghosts with dirty minds and far too much free time on their long-dead hands! Obviously these scenes are more comical than frightening, especially since the light-blue and transparent shapes remind you of the cute ghost effects that were later popularized in "Ghostbusters". "The House Where Evil Dwells" is probably the least scary ghost movie ever. Throughout most of the running time, you'll be wondering whether director Kevin Connor (who nevertheless made the excellent horror films "Motel Hell" and "From Beyond the Grave") intentionally wanted to make his movie funny and over-the-top, like "Motel Hell" maybe. But then again, everyone in the cast continues to speak his/her lines with a straight and sincere face, so I guess we are nevertheless supposed to take everything seriously and feel disturbed. "The House Where Evil Dwells" is never suspenseful or even remotely exciting and it doesn't even contain any grisly images apart from the massacre at the beginning. I am fully aware of how shallow it sounds, but the two scenes in which Susan George goes topless are the only true highlights. Well, those and maybe also the invasion of cheesy and ridiculously over-sized spiders (or are they crabs?) in the daughter's bedroom. How totally random and irrelevant was that? If you ever decide to give this movie a chance notwithstanding its bad reputation, make sure you leave your common sense and reasoning at the doorstep.

Trivia note for horror buffs: keep an eye open for the demon-mask that was also a pivot piece of scenery in the brilliant Japanese horror classic Onibaba.