My review was written in May 1991 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.
Breathless suspense denotes this horror thriller, an unbelievable yet engrossing exercise in paranoia. Except for its B-picture lack of adequate production values, "The Servants of Twilight" would stand a theatrical shot.
Invading "The Omen" territory minus special efects, this pic demonstrates that novelist dean R. Koontz could be the next bigscreen brand name in a genre dominated by Stephen King and Clive Barker. His plotting here is functional and
elevated by director Jeffrey Obron to a fever pitch.
Told in flashback by bearded private eye Bruce Greenwood to his shrink Jack Kehoe, story has the same feel as the classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".
Months earlier, clean-shaven Greenwood decided to go back after a year's layoff to help beautiful mom in distress Belinda Bauer. She and he young son (Jarrett Lennon) are being terrorized by religious fanatic Grace Zabriskie and her Church of the Twilight zealots.
They've tabbed Lennon as the young anti-Chrit, and, before you can say Damien, they're making life for him and Bauer hell. When Greenwood's operatives are killed, he and the client duo take to the road, with Zabriskie's henchmen always on their tale.
The rapid succession of shootouts and narrow escapes is hard to believe but well staged for cliffhanger excitement.
Broad hints establish early on who's the fink among the good guys, and only a neophyte viewer won't suspect cute little Lennon of being too good to be true. Except for some pulsating bladders on the neck at the film's climax and some unimpressive bat effects, the film is not fantastic enough along the way to impress genre fans.
If the goal was to root the action in a routine policier fromat, success is without reward.
Zabriskie of "Twin Peaks" is perfectly cast as the fanatical villainess. Greenwood and Bauer are empathetic leads, and grotesque-looking Carell Struyckenis the most frightening henchman since his role model, Michael Berryman of "The Hills Have Eyes". Visuals are mundane and mainly lack atmosphere.
Absent elsewhere is the poetry of an eerie overhead vista of Greenwood literally going crazy in a pet cemetery.
