Revenge

Sure, with my fascination and love of the horror genre, then of course I opted to sit down and watch the 1985 movie "Revenge", without ever having heard about it. I had the opportunity to watch it here in 2024, and of course I did so. I didn't know what I was in for, but the movie's cover was actually interesting enough. But I was expecting a certain level of 1980s cheese and campy horror clichés.

Granted, I haven't watched the 1985 movie "Blood Cult", to which "Revenge" is a direct sequel. So I don't know how much I was missing out on in terms of being able to fully understand or appreciate the narrative and storyline in this sequel, which was released just year after its predecessor.

The storyline in the movie was a bit all over the place; one minute it was a slasher movie, the next it was a supernatural slasher, and then a psychological thriller. It felt like writer and director Christopher Lewis didn't really know where to go with the story, nor how to really construct a red thread in the narrative. Watching "Revenge" felt like it was pieced together by numerous small independent shots that Christopher Lewis had filmed, and then attempted to fuse them together and make a cohesive narrative from it.

Of the entire cast ensemble in the movie, I was only familiar with Patrick Wayne and John Carradine. Despite the fact that the movie's script and storyline was a dumpster fire, then the acting performances were actually fair.

This 1985 horror movie from writer and director Christopher Lewis was a swing and a miss. It was a pretty weak horror experience, and the movie is highly forgettable. This is definitely not a movie that I would recommend to horror fans. Nor is it a movie that I will ever sit down and watch a second time, as it was a struggle enough to sit through the boredom the first time around.

"Revenge" is a mid-1980s horror movie that should remain shelved and collecting dust. Not really worth spending a staggering, and boring, 100 minutes on watching.

My rating of "Revenge" lands on a two out of ten stars.

Shot for $5 and some change in a dirt lot in someone's backyard, this straight to video film about a cult of somesuch or another has undeservedly made its way to DVD. "How", I ask? Did enough people actually watch this sub-mediocre production to warrant taking the time and energy to transfer it to a digital medium?

Count me among the guilty for having rented this back in the 80's, when straight to video had begun to glut the market with piles of these forgettable "horror" films. Count yourself among the fore-warned if you manage to read this in time to prevent renting the DVD, or worse, buying it.

Outside of the slick cover, there's nothing else in between, but if you won't take my word for, read some of the other user comments before proceeding with wasting your money.

Directed by Christopher Lewis, low-budget horror Revenge is the sequel to shot-on-video movie Blood Cult (1985), a film that I haven't seen, and which I now have no real desire to see.

Patrick Wayne, son of John, slums it as Michael Hogan, who returns to his home-town to investigate the death of his brother. Teaming up with widow Gracie Moore (Bennie Lee McGowan), he uncovers the existence of a murderous cult (led by ageing horror icon John Carradine) who worship the dog-god Caninus, and who are collecting body parts of their victims for use in a ritual that will resurrect their deity.

Protracted scenes of deathly dull dialogue make up the bulk of this 100-minute crap-fest, and remaining conscious throughout proves a challenge. Lewis tries to inject some excitement into proceedings with a mysterious motorcyclist intimidating Gracie by racing his bike and popping wheelies outside her farmhouse, but these scenes are poorly handled and go on for far too long. There are also a few ineptly orchestrated deaths designed to keep the viewer from nodding off: a farmer gets a hatchet in his forehead, a girl steps in a bear trap and has her leg cut off, a woman is burnt to death by supernatural means, and a girl in a jacuzzi is repeatedly stabbed and then decapitated. Unfortunately, the kills aren't that graphic, and what gore there is is cheap and unconvincing.

Kudos to anyone who makes it to the WTF? ending without having caught a few z's along the way.

2.5/10, generously rounded up to 3 for IMDb.

Revenge (1986)

* (out of 4)

Sequel to Blood Cult has Patrick Wayne (John's son) coming to the small town to see who or what killed his baby brother. This movie picks up minutes after the events in the first film ended but instead of doing something interesting the screenplay just has more of the same. If you've seen the first film then you know a cult is doing the killing and it's clear in this film but we've got to put up with Wayne's character trying to figure everything out again. This becomes very tiresome and what makes it worse is that the film runs for nearly 104-minutes, which is just way, way too long. John Carradine appears in two scenes as a Senator and head Satan worshipper. He really plays it rather straight but is decent in the role. Wayne on the other hand is incredibly stiff and doesn't add anything to the film. While the first film had a fair share of violence that's not the case here. Most of the violence has been hacked out and you're left with a straight mystery that just doesn't work. I was about to give this thing a half a star but things do pick up in the final five minutes with a nice twist that I actually didn't see coming. Even with that said, the two films in this series are extremely bad and boring.

This one is supposed to be a sequel to some "Blood Cult", but as far as direct-to video goes, this one features the usual shots of people wandering endlessly waiting to be killed while others go on about their business, waiting to discover the bodies. There's some inklings of a plot in there and the finale (a black mass) is slightly interesting, but you'll fall asleep long before this.