Superstition
1982
Director- James W. Roberson
Cast- Jim Houghton, Albert Salmi, Lynn Carlin, Larry
Pennell, Jacquelyn Hyde, Robert Symonds, Heidi Bohay, Maylo McCaslin, Carole
Goldman, Stacy Keach Sr., Kim Marie, Joshua Cadman
An old, dilapidating
house sits on a rural grounds owned by the local church. An old woman, Elvira, and
her seemingly idiot son are the caretakers, the latest in a long family line of
caretakers. Teenagers use the grounds as a place to get into shenanigans. The film starts with two of these kids meeting
their grisly ends in the house. One is decapitated and gets his head
microwaved. The other gets bisected!
Revered
Thompson is a minister recently assigned to the church. The local police want him
to do something about the property, pronto. They suspect Elvira’s idiot son,
Arlen, is the killer. A detective is assigned to tail Arlen and follows him
down to a brackish pond on the property. While nosing around, a monstrous hand
comes out of the water and drags the detective under. The body can’t be found
and Reverend Thompson decides that he’ll have the pond drained, which drives
Arlen crazy and he runs off.
The
Reverend speaks with Elvira but she only gives a vague warning that she has
lost her son and that he is in the service of some mysterious woman and she
makes reference to losing her husband to the same mysterious woman. Elvira
tells Reverend Thomas that the property has a history of violence going all the
way back to 1692.
A new Reverend,
Lahey, is moving in with his family. As the house is getting fixed up, people
are killed in accidents. The drowned detectives body is finally found, or at least
part of it. While swimming, one of Lahey’s daughters feels something grab her
leg. When she emerges from the pond, the detectives severed hand is grasped
around her ankle.
The cops
tell Reverend Thompson that (no surprise) in addition to everything else that
has happened, another family tried to live in the home and each member was
killed gruesomely.
Reverend
Lahey’s son “disappears” (though we know that he has met his end). While
looking for the boy, Reverend Thomas just happens to find a copy of the Malleus
Maleficarum, the Inquisition’s manual for how to persecute witches (because
people just leave things like that lying around). At this point, you may want
to check your brain at the door. Despite the book being written in 15th
century Europe, it just happens to recount a tale from 17th century
America. Well, I guess we’ll consider it a new edition. Anyway, Reverend Thomas
learns that 300 years earlier, a Reverend Pike had overseen the trial, and
death by drowning, of a witch. She wasn’t one of those falsely accused witches
either. She was definitively in league with Satan and she cursed everyone
before she died.
As we
discover, that witch has returned, and is responsible for all of the gruesome
murders, with assistance from the missing Arlen. Now the two Reverends have to
stop her as she goes on a murderous rampage.
The
movie isn’t great but it has some entertainment value. It seems to have a hard
time figuring out what it wants be; either a slasher or an occult thriller. Some
of the plot elements either go nowhere or are left dangling. Though it was a
theatrical release, the production values are about on par with the television
movies of that day. It’s not scary but does have some horrific elements with
the murders. In fact, the creative gore is probably its standout quality. In
addition to the microwaved head and bisection at the beginning of the film, we
get one man perforated with a saw blade, a girl gets a spike hammered through
her forehead and more.
Not for
those looking for a thoughtful supernatural thriller, but if you want some
creative, video store era horror, it can offer an evening’s entertainment.
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