FEAR NO EVIL
US, 1981, 99 minutes, Colour.
Stefan Arngrim, Elizabeth Hoffman, Kathleen Rowe Mc Allen, Frank Birney, Daniel Eden, John Holland.
Directed by Frank La Loggia.
During the 1970s, in the aftermath of The Exorcist, there was an enormous number of films exploring the dark side, satanic possession, children of the devil, omens, the second coming, incarnations of Lucifer and angels to combat him. While the films from the United States and the United Kingdom were fairly straightforward in their presentation of horror, with celebrated directors making the films, the Italians, after their spaghetti westerns, began to make a range of “spaghetti horror�.
Although this is an American film, it has many resemblances to the Italian films. The writer-director, Frank La Loggia, has an Italian background, and takes Catholic themes as well as a great deal of Catholic imagery, liturgy and iconography for his horror thriller.
In many ways it is a concoction or a conglomeration – some might call it a potpouri of horror themes, while others consider it something of a mess.
It has an exotic setting, a Castle in Alexandria Bay in upper New York state, exteriors and interiors used as well is a scene where a tourist boat sails past the island describing it and the Castle.
The film is also a high school drama, in the vein of so many films at this time and into the 80s. There are the usual students, high school, classroom sequences, sports and basketball sequences, shower sequences, interviews with the principal, ambitions to get into college.
The religious background is fairly strong, a focus on a priest, his baptising a child in the 1963 sequence, his work in the school and the parish 18 years later, liturgical, helping with sports as well as the production of the Passion Play.
The exotic religious background is also strong. The film presupposes the incarnation of Lucifer, who formed a bizarre holy Trinity with the Belial and Leviathan. Lucifer is incarnated at various times, especially those times associated with the Second Coming. (Which makes many audiences wonder why the Second Coming always has to take place in the United States in remote towns and cities.) To combat Lucifer, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael are also incarnated in various guises. Initially, Raphael was incarnated as a priest, Father Damon, who confronted the then incarnation of Lucifer and killed him, only to be taken to trial in the courts and condemned, the fellow priest in the parish, already mentioned, refusing to stand up for him.
Michael is incarnated in Margaret, Elizabeth Hoffman, Father Damon’s sister, still alive, wanting justice for him, confronting the parish priest, discovering Gabriel in the form of a young woman in a relationship with a student who hopes to go to university but who is killed. She seems always to be in something of a trance.
But, this time Lucifer is the young student, Andrew (Stephane Arngrim). We see his birth in 1963, rejoicing family, the men drinking, going to church for the baptism, the ritual and then suddenly fire emanating from the font and throughout the church. The mother is very upset and there is a kind of collage focusing on the house, light and shadow, as the years pass. Andrew is then 18, celebrating his birthday. He is a remote kind of person, a good student at school, staying upstairs in his room. There is an accident at his party when his mother is hit by a falling iron and she is then locked in her room, his father becoming more demented, going to the local bar to drink, denouncing his son.
So, the film is interesting for a variation on the Devil incarnate, a slight personality and build, touch of the effeminate, his appearance, clever and studies, about to go to college, interviewed by his teachers, visiting his mother and giving her food, involved in basketball and sport, ridiculed in the shower, the class bully taunting him and being urged to kiss him, a rather vigorous kiss which overcomes the bully (temporarily). When Andrew is late for sport, he is told to do push-ups but he causes a shockingly violent death.
The bully has a girlfriend, is brutal towards her, discarding her, followed around by a bevy of friends. Later, they go to the Castle and indulge in some sexual activities, the bully confronted by Andrew and, bizarrely, shocked when he grows breasts. He is killed.
By this time, Andrew is ready to manifest his Lucifer nature, goes to the cemetery and raises a whole lot of the bodies there so that there are a some zombie moments in the film. In the meantime, back at school, the parish priest is involved in the annual putting on of the Passion Play. There are scenes of this play including the Last Supper, but when Jesus is on the cross, Andrew stares at him and the actor starts to bleed, dies, and blood spilling all over the audience to go into mass panic and the priest, warned by Margaret not to have the play, is disillusioned.
This leads up to the finale, Margaret and the young girl as Gabriel rowing to the Castle, confronting Andrew, having some power over him, reflecting light on a standard that they are carrying, Margaret forcing him to recite the Lord’s prayer, but then destroying him with the light.
In a way, this film could symbolise the trends of the 1970s and 80s with a range of genres as well as bizarre imaginings of the end times.
