Re: Halloween Horror Marathon 2023
Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2023 9:07 pm
-Deadly Blessing (1981): 7/10
A young couple, Martha and Jim Schmidt (Maren Jensen and Douglas Barr) live on an isolated farm, with Jim having left the fold of the neighboring clan of "Hittites" (a technology-shunning religious sect who "Make the Amish look like swingers") in order to marry. The Hittite community's leader -- and Jim's father -- Isaiah (Ernest Borgnine), slanders Martha as an "Incubus" who seduced Jim away from the true path of their Lord. But when Jim dies in what appears to be a freak plow accident, the bereaved Martha is visited by her two former college roommates, Vicky Anderson (Susan Buckner) and Lana Marcus (a young Sharon Stone, in one of her first significant film roles), who hope to help get get over a rough patch and heal. Soon, however, the death of one of the Hittites -- his body found in Martha's barn -- kicks off a series of increasingly disturbing events, with surreal dreams, a rattlesnake wriggling its way into Martha's bath and a masked killer seemingly on the loose.
Directed by Wes Craven (who co-wrote with Glenn M. Benest and Matthew Barr), Deadly Blessing is one of the better films from the talented but maddeningly uneven horror veteran. Capable of genre classics like A Nightmare On Elm Street and Scream as well as howlingly inept turkeys like Shocker and A Vampire In Brooklyn, you truly never know what you're gonna get with a Craven joint, but Blessing is blessed with a solid sense of rural, sun-baked atmosphere, some good shocks, and a fine, early score by James Horner that mixes rustic string and woodwind flourishes with some dark choral chanting that's heavily, um, "inspired" by Jerry Goldsmith's work on the Omen trilogy. Still it juices up the movie well, even if a poorly set-up last-minute "Gotcha!" ending puts a bit of a damper on what's otherwise one of Craven's better movies outside of his pair of signature franchises.
A young couple, Martha and Jim Schmidt (Maren Jensen and Douglas Barr) live on an isolated farm, with Jim having left the fold of the neighboring clan of "Hittites" (a technology-shunning religious sect who "Make the Amish look like swingers") in order to marry. The Hittite community's leader -- and Jim's father -- Isaiah (Ernest Borgnine), slanders Martha as an "Incubus" who seduced Jim away from the true path of their Lord. But when Jim dies in what appears to be a freak plow accident, the bereaved Martha is visited by her two former college roommates, Vicky Anderson (Susan Buckner) and Lana Marcus (a young Sharon Stone, in one of her first significant film roles), who hope to help get get over a rough patch and heal. Soon, however, the death of one of the Hittites -- his body found in Martha's barn -- kicks off a series of increasingly disturbing events, with surreal dreams, a rattlesnake wriggling its way into Martha's bath and a masked killer seemingly on the loose.
Directed by Wes Craven (who co-wrote with Glenn M. Benest and Matthew Barr), Deadly Blessing is one of the better films from the talented but maddeningly uneven horror veteran. Capable of genre classics like A Nightmare On Elm Street and Scream as well as howlingly inept turkeys like Shocker and A Vampire In Brooklyn, you truly never know what you're gonna get with a Craven joint, but Blessing is blessed with a solid sense of rural, sun-baked atmosphere, some good shocks, and a fine, early score by James Horner that mixes rustic string and woodwind flourishes with some dark choral chanting that's heavily, um, "inspired" by Jerry Goldsmith's work on the Omen trilogy. Still it juices up the movie well, even if a poorly set-up last-minute "Gotcha!" ending puts a bit of a damper on what's otherwise one of Craven's better movies outside of his pair of signature franchises.