Search Movie Review Archives

Harboring nightmares from his childhood, when Barry calls to inform Eric that Linda has died from a heartache, Eric reluctantly agrees to go to the funeral, but has not gotten over the pain his stepfather has caused him. Spurred on by his demonic angel, Jack (Michael Robert Brandon), and despite the attempts of his good angel, Michael (Jeffery Steiger), Eric proceeds to bludgeon his stepfather once everyone else has gone home. He then carries him into the woods and proceeds to bury him alive.

Having crossed over into the realm of the wicked, Eric finds himself possessed by his demonic angel and wanting to kill again, and again, and again... So, of course, he does. But once Jamie starts detecting something wrong with him and he tries to strangle her, she kicks him out, seeking refuge with her best friend, Sarah Usher (Lisa Jesswein), whose husband happens to be Eric's best friend, Glenn Usher (Tim Lovelace), and a detective on the police force (which is rather convenient considering the low budget).

Once bodies start piling up, Glenn and Sarah realize who is doing the killing and come after Eric, but not before he is able to kill Sarah and a few other people. Eventually Eric works his way back to Jamie, but finds that he does not have it in him to kill her. Having previously told her that he loved her enough to die for her, he kills himself instead.

This is an independent film that was made for around $350,000. Nevertheless, a low budget is no excuse for an incredibly stupid story and gawdawful acting. Robert Rodriguez did better with $7,000.00 (see El Mariachi).

As for the story, it is utterly unconvincing. First of all, Barry, Eric's stepfather, has gotten on the wagon - no more alcohol actually translates into being a nice guy. But that doesn't stop Barry from just snapping on the day of his mother's funeral. As for his motivation for killing the rest of the women, he somehow gets it in his head that it is his job to kill them because they are suffering at the hands of their husbands, or something like that, but this only seems to hold true for one more of the victims, a girl he meets in a bar whose boyfriend is abusive. His motivation for killing people just seems to grow and doesn't make any sense. As for his relationship with his angels, the good one and the bad, it was completely undeveloped and never really made much sense.

What about the acting? Just like Michael Kallio, I spent the majority of the time pulling my hair out. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure the only thing Michael Kallio's character did other than stab people was put his hands in his hair, cover his face, and pull. That was how expressed sadness, fear, anger, frustration; I'm surprised that isn't how he laughed. He also seemed to be obsessed with his hair, as though it added some element to his character. In actuality, I liked Jack the Demon better (he had no hair) because I could see his face and it had expressions on it - Michael Kallio's sure didn't. The only actor who was even remotely decent in this film was Tim Lovelace, who played the cop. He wasn't great and he probably wasn't even really acting, but he seemed like a cop, so it worked. As for Tracee Newberry, she seemed to know her lines well, but her presentation was pathetic and, well, all she had to work with was Michael Kallio. Maybe with time she would get better, but she'd also need someone that could actually use her talents to good effect. Gunnar Hansen wasn't horrible, but neither was he great. It was actually kind of sad to see someone of his reputed fame in a film this bad. Oh well, no one will probably ever see it, so it shouldn't matter.

What about the special effects? The blood and gore weren't actually too bad, for the most part. There was the final scene where Eric had half of his face melted with steamed vegetables (ha, ha, yeah right!), which only made me laugh considering steamed vegetables might make his face a little red, but wouldn't hideously distort and melt it.

Overall, this is a top-notch horrible movie (not horror movie, horrible movie). The story is terrible. The acting is terrible. It's not worth your time, your money, or even reading this review. Do not watch this movie. I repeat, do not watch this movie.

The sound, however, didn't have nearly the quality of the video. There was no surround sound and no depth. The music was horrible and the volume varied. It definitely could have used some professional sound mastering but didn't seem to have it.

The behind the scenes featurette doesn't include any interviews, it is just a montage of behind the scenes footage, is shot on a crappy camera, and is poorly edited. It isn't worth watching. The Premier featurette is actually kind of interesting. It is footage of the actual premiere, which I haven't seen on any other DVD, probably because they usually aren't that interesting. However, this one actually has Michael Kallio and Bruce Campbell up on stage before and after the movie taking questions and comments. Boy I'd hate to have been them. How embarrassing!

I was actually surprised that there as many extra features as there were, but despite there being quite a few, they aren't really worth watching.

If you can suffer your way through their horrible humor, you might find some interesting tidbits to this otherwise awful movie, but I'm not sure that you should care.