Definitely 70s era movie. It was another late movie show oddity. I could’ve sworn it was called something like “Through the Doorway”, but neither a wikipedia search nor an IMDB search turned up anything close to that.
The movie begins with a very impressionistic prologue - a darkened, empty set where a Man and woman appear to be making love. But the woman becomes frightened and runs away. I should mention, this scene is entirely silent.
That scene is followed by a real-world shot of the Man driving over a bridge, and his car suddenly careens out of control and plunges off the bridge. This scene too is all silent, but as the car hurdles toward certain doom, a disembodied evil voice (the voice of…SATAN!!!) begins taunting him. Evidently, the Man is a Satanist and was trying to recruit the woman into the forces of darkness. The Dark Master (still disembodied voice) says he had expected to ‘use’ that woman, and he’s very disappointed with the Man for letting her get away. The Man should expect to suffer some extreme torment when he gets to Hell…in the next few minutes.
BUT…the Dark Master decides to give the Man one last chance. It seems the Devil has somehow implanted a seed of evil in a particular woman. If the Man can ensure that this woman will give birth to the Antichrist, then he’ll be…let’s not say ‘forgiven’ but just not burning for all eternity just yet. Not sure how he got out of the car in midair, but he appears throughout the rest of the film as a spectral being.
So the movie begins in earnest by introducing the woman. I remember she was blonde, and married. It was her husband’s second marriage, and he has two kids already. She tells her husband that she’s pregnant, and they’re both surprised since she was on the pill. But they decide to make the best of it.
Of course, weird things begin happening. The women keeps getting glimpses of the Man in mirrors, or out of the corner of her eye, and hearing sinister laughter. Before long, she tells her husband she doesn’t want to have the baby. But she ends up not having an abortion, I don’t know why. As she gets closer to her due date, she shows signs of possession (including, unfortunately, a blatant rip-off of the famious “Exorcist” head spinning.)
I don’t remember how the movie all worked out. What was (to me) distinctive of the film was the long pauses or silences. I seem to recall quite a few scenes with no dialogue at all - which only made the disembodied sinister laughter all the creepier when it occurred. There were also lots of odd camera shots and ‘dutch angles’ throughout.
So, does anybody remember this?