bxc I think maybe you are missing the point that most of us here on this thread were absolutely traumatized by this short film when we were in grade school during the 1970s -- they showed it every year to the 4th and 5th graders at the elementary school I attended, and getting to finally see it for yourself was a rite of passage. We'd hear stories passed from older siblings about the movie with the lottery which had a piece of paper with a black spot on it, and how it was one of the creepiest things ever, and had to wait our turn before we could finally see it.
You are correct that Ms. Jackson's book version is much richer in detail with more well drawn characterizations. And while I recall being assigned to read the story it didn't frighten me the way the film version did. I recall imagining what I would do if that was my mom who ended up with the black dot and crying hysterically & having trouble sleeping for a night or two after seeing it for the first time. We had no idea what was going to happen and nobody's whispered story about the film prepared us for the ending, which for an eight or nine year old kid was 100% traumatizing.
As for the film itself being amateurish & poor, you may be onto something: It was filmed for peanuts using people who were non-actors, shot in some common small town vacant lot in an afternoon or two. But that's what made it so vivid to us back then. The un-sensational, banal, ordinariness of the presentation makes you wonder about the rituals your own community engages in, rather than creating some sort of make believe cinematic alternate reality. It looks like the vacant lot down the block next to the Pharmacy.
Seeing it now as an adult with a background in researching low budget cult/horror filmmaking I'm impressed by how spare the production is: The only props are a stool, a locked wooden box, and a dozen or so slips of paper. One has a black spot on it. The performers are wearing their ordinary day to day clothes. The special effects consist of people picking up rocks and tossing them at the camera. And yet it's one of the creepiest, most bizarre little bits of American regional horror I've ever encountered.
Naturally the original story is where it all comes from, and I agree that people should seek that out as well (just do a Google search, they are putting every book ever written online) but don't diss this little marvel of our collective youth!! It had the power to completely freak us out as kids, and I wonder if educators these days could get away with showing it to their classrooms and not be at risk for getting sued by the parents of some kid who broke down in tears and couldn't sleep after seeing it.
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