No one going into a low budget film like this should expect a masterpiece, but reading the reviews, I was prepared for something far less competent than this movie about an intergenerational curse as the product of a witch burning (think Mario Bava's Black Sunday but set in modern day - well, 1971 - Staten Island).You sort of expect barely-good-enough performances and barely competent direction with something like this, but several things really threw me for a loop:First is the performance of the smoking hot Shelby Leverington, the revengeful protagonist of the movie. Her performance here exceeds expectations which adds to the surreal quality of the film generally. I should also mention, in particular, the performance of Norman Parker as Jake, who matches her excellently and believably.The other thing is the unsettling yet appealing left-field prog-psych soundtrack which was notable enough that it kept drawing my attention.There are no big twists here and the plot is hardly original, but the direction is competent and it exceeds a lot of other films with this sort of subject matter from that time period.I don't agree with the negative reviews of this film. Compared to all of the other occult horror of the period, this one stands up a lot better than most of the rest, avoiding exploitation elements in favor of something a little more subtle. There's some blood and some sex, but it is muted and serves the plot.This is not Citizen Kane. You have to suspend a few critical faculties for this. But for what it is, you can do a whole lot worse.Also: if any woman ever starts telling you a story about the Southern Tribes, my suggestion is to head for the exit immediately.

This low, low budget clunker begins with a Salem Witch Trials type of sequence wherein a young woman is accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake. Then we abruptly - and I do mean abruptly - cut to modern times where another young woman, Lise (the attractive Shelby Leverington) has insinuated herself into the lives of an affluent but insipid family. Eventually a few deaths occur; it seems as if somebody wants to get revenge for the death of that long ago witch.Nothing interesting ever happens in this dull and dumb film. It just plods along, with way too much filler. For whatever reason, Lise feels compelled to tell people stories about ancient tribes where women were the hunters-gatherers. Sequences such as those in an office building are simply inane and go on too long. The dialogue by director Ken Friedman is lame and badly delivered by a mostly nondescript cast. Use of music is particularly egregious. Gore and fight scenes are as inept as the balance of the film. Because of this, "Death by Invitation" isn't without its little amusements, but there's simply too few of them.Leverington went on to have a fairly good career as a character actress, appearing in things like "The Long Riders" and "Dutch". A good thing, considering how inauspicious this film debut was. Another performer here did reasonably well, and that's Norman Parker (who plays Jake), whose other credits include "Prince of the City" and "The Clairvoyant". Aaron Phillips is awful as grumpy patriarch Peter Vroot. Friedman, to his credit, would hone his craft and go on to write or co-write such movies as "White Line Fever", "Heart Like a Wheel", and "Johnny Handsome".With an underwhelming and unsatisfying ending, and a story too thin to sustain much viewer attention, this has to rate as very forgettable. Even people who crave discovering obscure efforts like this may find their patience tested.Four out of 10.

Laughably inept movie about a witch's hippie descendant named Lise (Shelby Leverington) who takes revenge on the descendants of those who burned her ancestor at the stake. I've seen this plot done before and better. Terribly directed, edited, acted, written...you name it, this movie sucks at it. Does have some merit as an unintentional comedy, however. My favorite scene is Lise's monologue where she tells this sad sack Roger about how women used to run things and then this one big guy took over and the men started running things so the women killed the big guy and ate him. When she was done with her long-winded story, she seductively says "Hand me the ashtray, Roger." It was supposed to be erotic or something, I guess, but it just made me burst out laughing. This is strictly amateur hour stuff, so avoid unless you're into that sort of thing.

Back when I was involved in the film industry circa 1980 I used to see many unreleased films, and they often had common defects accounting for their being shelved. Though it actually achieved a release in 1971, DEATH BY INVITATION displays similar problems.It's a case of poor execution -the standard horror theme of centuries-old-curse leading to lame-duck revenge is trotted out, but delivered so crudely as to have no effect on the viewer. Films operate through tension and release, and when it's all flat (like this baby) or all tension/no release (as in the current sci-fi stinker NEVER LET ME GO) the viewer is left high & dry.After a truly clumsy opening sequence set in times supposed to suggest the Salem Witch Trials (but on a zero budget), film settles into a rather tedious family drama set in modern Staten Island. It's a corny format of an outsider (striking looking Shelby Leverington, whose career as a character actress managed to overlook this unfortunate debut assignment) preying on a family. Script does a poor job of establishing her relationship, and the subsequent grisly murders are very poorly done, offering little meat for a genre fan to nibble upon.It devolves into a shaggy dog exercise, not unlike what one would expect if the Coen Bros. made a send-up of low-budget horror films, including the usual cryptic elements. The story is neither compelling nor suspenseful, at best creating a sense of dread. The musical score tries to whip up some tension, but one can't help but gravitate towards a "who cares?" position. I saw THE CURSE OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN and CARNIVAL OF BLOOD from the same producer/distributor at drive-ins back in the '70s, but never saw this one get booked. It would have to be shown early in the evening when the sun was still out, because if it was shown late in the program no one would have stayed to the end.And the climax is very clumsily edited, with a terrible fight sequence and poor sound. As with many films that never made it out of the lab, one feels that the needed re-shoots or coverage of a "scene missing" were not provided for in the low budget.Telling is a pointless sequence where our hero wanders around an office building, given the runaround by secretaries, and finally arrives at patriarch Vroot's office only to have their inane conversation drowned out by loud Muzak that Vroot proudly has piped in. This idiotic footage goes on & on and gives one the impression that the director had strayed off the set.Almost as bad is a preposterous gimmick wherein the detective investigating the family's murders is written to be not merely incompetent but aggressively stupid, so as to prevent the culprit from getting caught, and to keep the story's pot boiling. Even Something Weird's resident presenter Frank Henenlotter cannot alibi this lousy development, which is even worse than some of the outlandishness he tries to slip into his own horror films. Ironically, I did see director Ken Friedman's next film, MADE IN U.S.A., in first run in 1987 and enjoyed it immensely. He never got a directing career going, but did write a number of very entertaining screenplays like MR. BILLION and WHITE LINE FEVER. So chalk this misfire of a supernatural effort up to lack of experience.