Opie’s little brother goes buckwild on some bullies…and hey, there are some pigs running around here, too!
Some movie characters are so terribly bullied, you’re willing to give them a Charles Bronson-like free pass to even the score. Stanley Coopersmith is a paunchy orphan attending West Andover Military Academy, and every person there hates his goddamn guts. Fellow cadets tie his clothes in knots, joke about his dead parents, and kill his puppy. The teachers aren’t any better, looking the other way in Stanley’s times of need while giving him lowly chores such as looking after the pigsty (every college has one,…right?) and cleaning out the church basement.
The latter of these punishments leads him to finding a book of black magic penned by a 16th century Spanish satanist, Father Lorenzo Esteban. Somehow, Stanley has access to some kind of early-80s ChatGPT-level translation software, and he quickly uncovers the text to Esteban’s pentagram-clad tome. Using these centuries-old details of black masses, Coopersmith conjures up the Prince of Darkness using little more than some human blood and a Commodore 64 floppy disk.
No, absolutely none of this is believable, especially in 1981, but once Stanley’s cronies start biting the dust, it doesn’t matter! Consecrated host this, sulfur that, blood whatever, blah, blah – BAM! After 75 minutes of satanic masturbation and technical hooey, we get exactly what we came for: a levitating, sword-wielding weakling about to go apeshit on his bullies. Hearts are pulled from chests, fat kids are eaten alive by pigs, and heads are split open like watermelons at a Gallagher comedy show.
There are a number of reasons EVILSPEAK wasn’t a sensation when it first hit theaters. Many films of the 70s and 80s slasher cycle were hurt by widespread and often excessive censorship here in the US. The theatrical, R-rated cut of the EVILSPEAK was a neutered mess, extracting a hefty portion of the bloody vengeance everyone waits for in its final reels. I remember having to buy an import VHS copy in the 90s to finally see the complete film. Not only did the movie fall under the axe of the MPAA, but it was a late-edition coda of sorts to the ‘satanic panic’ of 1970s horror films. By the early 1980s, trickle-down economics had reared its ugly head and we had worse things to worry about than Satan.
The glory of the DVD era allowed us all to enjoy EVILSPEAK the way it was meant to be seen. When you combine this with a solid cast that includes Richard Moll (Bull the bailiff on “Night Court”), R.G. Armstrong (the mechanic in CHILDREN OF THE CORN), and Clint Howard as Coopersmith, you really can’t go wrong. Every time I watch this movie, I can’t help but think of Howard’s turn in that “Seinfeld” episode, “The Trip (Part 2)”. His reading of “Ah, Ann Landers SUCKS!” is still one of the greatest lines from season four. Do yourself a favor and watch EVILSPEAK and then that “Seinfeld” episode, back to back. It’ll give you a great, two-hour overview of Clint Howard’s career in one entertaining evening.
#unclean&unseen #evilspeak #clinthoward #richardmoll #rgarmstrong #satan #mpaa #childrenofthecorn #seinfeld #nightcourt #gallagher #charlesbronson #annlanders
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