The film’s supernatural premise grew out of the reported experiences of Doris Bither, a Los Angeles woman who claimed that she was repeatedly attacked and sexually assaulted by an invisible entity in her home in 1974. Her case was examined by doctoral students connected with UCLA’s then-existing parapsychology department and later became the basis for Frank De Felitta’s 1978 novel, which he adapted into the screenplay. The historical record, however, does not establish that an invisible assailant was ever captured or scientifically verified. The movie dramatically expands the alleged case, adding psychiatric confrontations, attacks witnessed by family members, a paranormal research team, and an elaborate attempt to freeze the entity with liquid helium. Neither director Sidney J. Furie nor Barbara Hershey met Bither, and Furie deliberately avoided researching the case closely because he did not want to prejudge the characters or impose a factual explanation on the story. As a result, The Entity occupies an uneasy space between alleged true crime, paranormal folklore, and feminist horror: Bither’s testimony and the UCLA documentation are historically reported, but the supernatural assault itself remains unverified, while many of the film’s most memorable events are outright fictional inventions.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1970s-1980s
Doris Bither and the Alleged Invisible Rapist Behind The Entity
The Entity / 1970s-1980s
The film’s supernatural premise grew out of the reported experiences of Doris Bither, a Los Angeles woman who claimed that she was repeatedly attacked and sexually assaulted by an invisible entity in her home in 1974. Her case was examined by doctoral students connected with UCLA’s then-existing parapsychology department and later became the basis for Frank De Felitta’s 1978 novel, which he adapted into the screenplay. The historical record, however, does not establish that an invisible assailant was ever captured or scientifically verified. The movie dramatically expands the alleged case, adding psychiatric confrontations, attacks witnessed by family members, a paranormal research team, and an elaborate attempt to freeze the entity with liquid helium. Neither director Sidney J. Furie nor Barbara Hershey met Bither, and Furie deliberately avoided researching the case closely because he did not want to prejudge the characters or impose a factual explanation on the story. As a result, The Entity occupies an uneasy space between alleged true crime, paranormal folklore, and feminist horror: Bither’s testimony and the UCLA documentation are historically reported, but the supernatural assault itself remains unverified, while many of the film’s most memorable events are outright fictional inventions.
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