FOR DYING OUT LOUD 666

A DUEL OF PERSONALITIES



EVILSPEAK (1981)
Clint Howard, R.G. Armstrong, Richard Moll, Claude Earl Jones, Haywood Nelson, Lynn Hancock, Joseph Cortese, Don Stark
Directed by Eric Weston
A carnage classic that stars a young Clint Howard (the brother of more famous Ron) in one of his archetype freaky performances as sensitive Stanley Coopersmith, a teen nerd who after his parents die, is sent to the strict and elite West Andover Military Academy as a welfare case. The school is populated by arrogant, asshole children of rich snobbish families. Standing out like a single mound of broccoli in a pile of mashed potatoes, being an orphan gains him no sympathy so he is quickly bullied, called 'Cooperdick', and soon kicked off the soccer team. Given demeaning jobs and viewed as nothing more than a weirdo, he is awkward, alienated, miserable, mistreated and subject to beatings. His only friends are a shirtless and mafia-looking mess hall cook named Jake, a kid named Kowalski, and a puppy given to him that he names Fred which the bullies later kill. But intrigue and investigation are about to turn things around for the brutalized outcast. Pulling cleaning duty, Stanley discovers a crypt and secret hidden library, below the school chapel that belonged to an exiled 16th Century Satanist named Father Lorenzo Esteban (played by Richard Moll) who was so terrible that his own brethren defrocked, banished & condemned him for heresy, and then burned him at the stake. One of the darkest monks to ever emerge from the Spanish Inquisition, in the opening flashback of a ritual on the beach of a rocky coast, he beheads a female disciple. After finding both Esteban's journal and pentagramed book of black magic, Stanley fiddles around on an Apple II computer with direct dial-up, and gains powers when after transcribing the Latin text, he creates a digitized program of an ancient Black Mass.

This allows him to channel Esteban's spirit (who had vowed to return), cast spells and summon demons. Communicating with the monk, a now-possessed Stanley with crazy hair pledges allegiance to the Devil and unleashes unearthly revenge on his classmate tormentors and the snooty staff. All hell breaks loose, complete with a trio of flesh-eating boars (why these pigs were being raised on school property is unexplained) that make a memorable entrance, and give new meaning to "getting porked" during a shower scene to attack & disembowel naked school secretary, the teasing but also smug, Miss Friedemeyer. [The standard nude romp T&A and bloodshed aside, it's largely her fatal comeuppance for theft & greed which had many describing her death as blatantly misogynist]. The gore here is voracious and along with lots of slow-mo, are Stanley's shellshocked facial expressions, increasing bedraggled appearance, his ability to levitate while bathed in light (complete with the cables you can see lifting him), deadly laser beams shooting high into the sky, impalement, and use of a long fiery sword. Even as fed-up Stanley is full-on bonkers in vanquishing his enemies, you can't help but root for him. The highlight splatterfest finale (with a ghost-in-the-machine premise for its end), a beating heart pulled out of a kid's chest (3yrs before Mola Ram's human sacrifice antics in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM), and his unholy vengeance exacted against teachers, the Coach, the soccer team, alcoholic Sarge, and the Principal who are all trapped, is definitely one for the category of "WTF did I just watch?" Well let me answer that question: a truly fun feast of madness.

Gap-toothed and crooked smiling Clint Howard as unathletic & clumsy, perfectly captures being a social leper and general misfit, who manages to elicit a great deal of laughter as much as sincerity. He had already been in some 30 movies and TV shows in a 15yr period up to this point, and it would be understandable to mistake this for being his debut. In the vein of CARRIE, DAMIEN: OMEN II, CHILD'S PLAY 3 (and a twisted version of 1981's TAPS), and said to be a favourite film of Anton LaVey, it takes a while for Stanley's payback to finally vent and the movie's practical fx are not great, but an interesting parallel to them was the early lo-fi video art, and particularly home computer central to the plot. Probably one of the first uses in a horror movie outside of usually being seen as huge industrial-sized cabinets filling up an entire room. While Britain was certainly no stranger to its own Beelzebub horror films delving into occult territory, EVILSPEAK was placed on the notorious 'video nasty' banned list in March 1984 for its grisly content. In 1987 as various international releases routinely cut out plenty of the extremity (most notably the decapitations and organ viscera), not until 2004 was it made properly available in the UK in its original uncut form. Overall, It's a garish cavalcade of apocalyptic crazy, definitely a product of its age, was left wide open for an intended sequel that never materialized, and totally worth it to see Howard's first forays as a shlub with the quirky mannerisms and oddball M.O. that would become his unhinged character actor trademark in a number of ridiculously over-the-top, hackneyed horror roles that were still years away.




HELLO MARY LOU: PROM NIGHT II (1987)
Lisa Schrage, Michael Ironside, Wendy Lyon, Richard Monette, Justin Louis, Terri Hawkes, Beverley Hendry
Directed by Bruce Pittman
A Canadian classic filmed in Edmonton and one NOT by David Cronenberg? You got it. HELLO MARY LOU opens in 1957 with the lusty Mary Lou Maloney in a teaser sequence, taking confession in a church booth to which she shamelessly admits to joyfully indulging in slutty sin. To emphasize this sincerity, she leaves her phone number on the wall in bright red lipstick. We next see her two-timing her boyfriend Billy at Hamilton High's Senior Prom ('prom' short for 'promiscuous' in her case) to make out backstage with macho Buddy as Little Richard blares in the background. Crowned Prom Queen, she is accidentally killed when jilted Billy, seeking to humiliate her, ignites her dress like a roman candle after a prank with a flaming stink bomb (found in the bathroom) goes wrong and burns her to death infront of the horrified graduates. In her agony, she sees Billy hiding up in the gym's stage rafters. 30yrs later, Billy is now the principal at the same school (in which hardly any of the student body seems to know the tragic history), and Buddy is now a Catholic Priest. Vicki Carpenter is our dear lovely heroine. She is looking for a knockout prom dress, and finds & opens a steamer trunk of props in the school theater department in the basement. It contains some of Mary Lou's old items, and upon taking some, she is possessed by Mary Lou's now-released ghost which will stop at nothing to seek violent revenge. Vicki's boyfriend for their upcoming Prom is hotshot Craig with the motorcycle, who it just happens is the Principal's son. Uh oh. Having returned all murdery & malevolent as an unseen force at first, Mary Lou doesn't hold back in wreaking telekinetic havoc and she controls Vicki (as harlot Vicki-Lou) to unleash a one-woman onslaught of destructiveness against the more popular of the pupils.

Vicki's friends then start turning up dead: Jess is found hanging from a cape and deemed a suicide due to pregnancy, Monica is crushed by a locker, and Buddy (tormented about Mary Lou back from the grave), witnesses his confessional being destroyed and is stabbed in the face with a crucifix. As well as these fatal attacks, a number of strange, terrifying visions are experienced such as a paper cutter turning into a guillotine, blood bubbling up from a drinking fountain, a creepy & horny rocking horse with a Gene Simmons-like cunnilingus tongue, and a giant spider web formed from a volleyball net. Undergoing change, Vicki wears poodle skirts & lipstick, uses profanity, acts like a hussy, and begins doubting her sanity for reasons she doesn't understand. When she gets a detention after a confrontation with her bitchy rival, Kelly, she is briefly pulled into a nightmarish, whirlpool underworld through a chalkboard. Craig will learn what it means to be concussed twice, and Vicki-Lou introduces herself sleazily to both Vicki's strict and religiously devout nutter of a Mom, and near-incestuous Dad. Let's just say it doesn't go well for the parents afterwards. Now with the teens' big New Wave night having arrived (with its universal checklist of stretch limos; uncleared acne; coppy-feely hands; unpolished dancing; sex on the brain; and proverbial impromptu late-hour fastfood cravings), Billy has since learned the terrible truth in seeing Vicki's transformation, and now has to face the ominous terror on the same occasion he thought he left behind 3 decades earlier. Kelly blowjobs her way to being crowned Prom Queen from rigged votes and taking the stage, Mary Lou sets on taking everyone down in an infernal blaze of glory. With a reappearance of her vortex-to-Hades, hell hath no fury like a woman once torched.

Which beauty will take the crown? Will everyone get to finish their last dance? Yes, it very much sounds like CARRIE but Mary Lou packs a punch with her own ruckus as a pitiless, mean girl temptress, while Vicki stands in contrast as the maple-syrupy sweetheart. And While HELLO MARY LOU is related to the disco-fused original PROM NIGHT (1980) in name only, and borrows plenty of horror tropes, it is still a successful melding of these derivative clichés that presents a unique & clever stand-alone feature, as opposed to being just another predictable retread. The movie shares some playful lineage (melted faces, anyone?) to films like RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, and RE-ANIMATOR; has references to THE EXORCIST, EVIL DEAD II, and POLTERGEIST; and a number of characters are also named in homage after horror film directors such as Carpenter, King, Henenlotter, O'Bannon, Romero, Craven, and Browning. Cheesy entertainment goodness abounds here with it's 80's dated fashion & hairstyles, bad dialogue, wonky sfx (bed sheets, bunsen burners or computer electrocution, anyone?), cast that looks like they should be attending a reunion instead of nearing graduation, and plot twists. A younger Michael Ironside still comes intact with his scowling, nudity comes by way of the girls locker room as Vicki-Lou tries to seduce a female classmate in the showers and chases her around naked, and to no surprise, Ricky Nelson's title song comes into play. And lastly we have Lisa Schrage. She should have gone on to do more as she had all the makings of a solid femme fatale villainess who corsaged and sexy-heeled, delights in being wayward & wicked. In a way, Mary Lou is not far off from being a feminist female-Freddy. In total, crushing out on her was easy in an age of baddies when cruel was cool. Straight up, HELLO MARY LOU is delightfully depraved, pure silly fun.