Deadly Blessing

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Horrorphile - June 2008

Deadly Blessing

June 26th 2008 01:07

Director Wes Craven - a wildly uneven filmmaker if ever there was one – had made two notorious low-budget shockers (both of them over-rated in my books, despite their cult followings), Last House on the Left (1972) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977), before he made Deadly Blessing (1981), a creepy tale of nasty rural religious shenanigans.

Striking young Martha Schmidt (Maren Jensen) is married to farmer Jim, who has become untangled from a neighbouring religious cult, the Hittites (an Amish-like sect). But there is bad blood between Jim and his father Isaiah (Ernest Borgnine), the strict leader of the cult. Unfortunately early in the piece Jim becomes victim to a tractor “accident” and poor Martha is left to fend for her own.

Old friends of Martha’s travel from the city to stay with her; Lana (Sharon Stone) and Vicky (Susan Bruckner), while neighbours middle-aged Louisa (Lois Nettleton) and her tomboy daughter Faith (Lisa Hartman) ingratiate themselves to the three young women. Earnest John Schmidt (Jeff East), Jim’s younger brother, finds himself attracted to Vicky, despite his father’s heavy disdain, and that he’s betrothed to fragile young Melissa (Coleen Riley).

Maren Jensen as Martha

Ominous things start to happen which appear to be the work of an incubus (demon), and Isaiah believes the demon is living with the sinners (Martha and her friends). After the mysterious death of cult member, the freaky William (Michael Berryman, the tall, bald weird-looking dude from The Hills Have Eyes), Isaiah is dead-set on doing God’s work of cleansing the land from those that sully its purity.

Sharon Stone as Lana

Deadly Blessing is a curious affair. Nowhere near as violent or disturbing as Craven’s first two features, yet there is something far more accomplished about Deadly Blessing, even if it does look and feel like an unusually dark Sunday Movie. Other horror movies cast shadows over the narrative and atmosphere, in particular The Omen (1976) and Friday the 13th (1980), but the movie also pre-dates Children of the Corn (1984), and one stand-out scene - Martha in the bath with a curious serpent - is the obvious inspiration for Craven’s famous Freddy’s bladed-glove in the bath with Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

Ernest Borgnine as Isaiah Schmidt

There are few major special effects, instead Craven relies on suspense and tone, but it doesn’t entirely work. Characters are a little too naïve and shallow in their characterizations for any real empathy, however the performances are, for the most part, better than anything in Craven’s earlier movies (and arguably better than a lot of the movies he made after), especially Lois Nettleman. But a spade is a spade: Ernest Borgnine spouts a staggeringly bad performance (with dreadful fake beard to boot), all wide-eyes and ham-fisted delivery. In fact he was nominated for the worst supporting actor award in the 1982 Razzies!

Jeff East as John Schmidt

Of course the most curious element of the whole movie is a very young Sharon Stone in her first substantial role (she’d made a fleeting appearance in Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories the year before). She looks very pretty, but it’s a rounder-faced and less bosomy Sharon Stone than the one who become super-famous overnight after Basic Instinct. What ever happened to exotic beauty Maren Jensen (she’d started as a model, became known as Athena on Battlestar Galactica - where I formed my adolescent crush - and dated Eagles drummer Don Henley). Apparently she was the first Hollywood actor to suffer the dilapidating effects of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Deadly Blessing was her last movie. Curiously, Susan Bruckner never made another feature after Deadly Blessing either. A Craven Curse, perhaps?

Deadly Blessing Coleen Riley, Ernest Borgnine and Jeff East

Melissa (Coleen Riley) watches as Isaiah banishes his son John from the community

The other stand-out of Deadly Blessing is the movie poster; a truly captivating use of sensual, yet elusively dangerous imagery. The corresponding scene in the movie features a large spider falling from the ceiling. Ugh! Further curiosity lies in that the poster features what appears to be a fusion of Sharon Stone and Maren Jensen, neither one nor the other. But hell, I’m a trainspotter from way back …

Deadly Blessing is by no means a great movie; it survives as an okay movie, but it does possess a fascinating cast, a quietly menacing mood, a couple of memorable scenes, and it must be said: a bizarre revelation, followed a little later by an utterly absurd ending, which simply cries out “Carrie!” (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

"The beast that thy sawest was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition, and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder ..."

Here's the clip which inspired the poster:

Deadly Blessing DVD is courtesy of Umbrella Entertainment, many thanks!

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

9 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Cibbuano

June 26th 2008 02:36

20/20 Filmsight
Science News
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak

that poster alone makes me want to see the movie. Early Sharon Stone, too! wow!

Comment by Bryn

June 26th 2008 03:48

Horrorphile

Cibby, yeah, the promotions team did a good job there. But be warned, the movie isn't as good as the poster ... Hmmm, what's new in the world of horror?

Comment by David O'Connell

June 26th 2008 04:52

Screen Fanatic

I agree with you about Craven's early work Bryn, I think most of it is very ordinary and overrated. Ever seen the hilariously bad Shocker for instance?

I've heard that the Hills Have Eyes remake by Alexandre Aja a couple of years ago is surprisingly good but I haven't watched it yet. (His Haute Tension was excellent, wasn't it?)

Comment by Bryn

June 26th 2008 06:11

Horrorphile

David, there's more bad than good in Craven's ouevre ... The ones that stand out are Nightmare on Elm Street, Serpent and the Rainbow and Red Eye. Deadly Blessing is more a curio than anything else, and Cursed completely fell apart, but could've been a great werewolf flick. I don't rate Scream. The Hills Have Eyes remake I thought was good stuff, but it polarised critics and audiences. The remake sequel was dreadful. I liked some of High Tension, but I found it uneven. Great decapitation though!

Comment by Damo

June 26th 2008 13:25

For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics

I have always been meaning to see this.
Yet kept on forgetting the Name of the Film.

Ernest B has not been in a good film since A Quiet on the Western Front.

Comment by Smooth Political

June 26th 2008 18:57

The movie poster is smokin. Definitely wants me to see the movie

Comment by Irene

June 26th 2008 19:06

Women In Cinema
Grammar Matters

OMG...so *this* is the movie that haunted me since I was 7 years old!! I remember being frightened by the spider clip for so long--at the time, it was the scariest thing ever. I think there is also a clip where she drinks milk or something, but then she looks at the glass and it turns to blood? I might be confusing it with another movie.

Comment by Cibbuano

June 26th 2008 23:12

20/20 Filmsight
Science News
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak

David, I saw the Hills Have Eyes remake when it came out, and I didn't like it that much...

Comment by Bryn

June 27th 2008 04:21

Horrorphile

Damo ... What about The Wild Bunch?

Irene, yeah, lana gets a carton of milk from the fridge and pours it while turning to talk to Martha and we see that the milk is actually blood, when she turns back she is shocked and drops the glass and it smashes on the floor spilling blood everywhere ...

Cibby, I don't know why so many people thought the remake was crap, it rocks! I think it's better than High Tension, and it's much better than the original Hills Have Eyes, a rare (in)breed ...

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