Fear No Evil

In the spring of 1981, an acquaintance of a first year film student took a Super 8 movie camera to a rural community and asked people on the spot to pretend that they're in a creepy, demonic horror movie. No...That's not actually what happened, but it may as well have been. Director-writer-composer-actor LaLoggia (and the guy is no Clint Eastwood or even Kevin Costner!) cooked up this cheap-looking, over-ambitious, pretentious, badly written and acted, illogical, senseless mess. There are two prologues to the film. One is a fairly creepy, but ultimately silly battle between a priest and Lucifer. The second is a godawful christening with ludicrous effects and acting. Years later, Arngrim (scary for all the wrong reasons) is a (26-year-old) high school student. He's an effeminate, brilliant outcast who alternates between haughty arrogance and quivering fear. (The performance as seen makes no sense at all.) His high school (full of mid-twenties bad actors) is a template for idiocy. Students mouth off to an inane degree, smoke pot on the grounds, sneak off to boiler rooms for sex and blare music from their convertibles (does anyone in the film have a hard top car?) Chief offender Eden plays a Vinnie Barbarino wannabee with gapped teeth and jeans that give too much away. He slaps his girlfriend and picks on Arngrim. However, the best scene in the film comes when he taunts Arngrim sexually in the locker room shower to impress his friends. He finds himself in a violent liplock he can't break away from. (One thing the film has going for it is a dose of male nudity, some of it frontal.) Meanwhile, Hoffman (who thinks she's in a good movie....she's wrong) is an archangel reincarnated who is bent on destroying Arngrim. She teams with another of her kind, young Rowe McAllen (in a comatose performance that dictated that she would never again appear in a feature film.) Rowe McAllen deservedly joins the legion of other film actors who got billed as, "Introducing..." and were scarcely heard from again. It all comes down to a battle between good and evil which happens to occur on the night of a big, tacky play about the crucifixion of Jesus. These final scenes are interesting only because the action in them breaks the tedium of the previous hour. Some of the make-up is effective and a few moments are funny (intentionally?? A guy say to his girlfriend, "You know I wouldn't let another creep put his hands on you" just as a zombiefied hand reaches for her ankle.) However, like the rest of the film, the lighting, acting, effects, and direction are all horrible. The video box spends half it's copy touting the soundtrack....not a good sign that the film itself will be an good. The songs are cleverly used, but hard to hear at times and only used in snippets mostly. Camp highlight: A militant gym teacher bellows and screams his head off inappropriately and eventually kills a student with a dodge ball!!!! Hilarious.

Fear No Evil, the low budget debut from director Frank LaLoggia (Lady in White), is one strange little film: made during the golden age of the slasher but inspired by such films as The Omen, Carrie, and Night of the Living Dead, this offbeat oddity mixes rebellious teen shenanigans with biblical horror, throws in random homo-eroticism without a moment's notice (in the film's most memorable and unintentionally hilarious scene, a supposedly macho bully victimises Andrew in the boys shower by trying to engage him in a naked kiss, whilst cheered on by his enthusiastic pals—it makes A Nightmare on Elm Street 2's towel whipping seem perfectly reasonable), boasts a surprisingly good new wave/punk soundtrack (The Ramones, The Boomtown Rats, The Sex Pistols, Talking Heads), and culminates in a burst of dazzlingly crap visual effects that wouldn't have looked out of place at a Jean Michel Jarre concert.

An undeniably ambitious project for a first-time director, the film features sincere performances, several well executed sequences (the rise of a horde of zombies is particularly effective), and one or two genuine 'WTF?' moments (a guy grows breasts for no discernible reason, and a church production of the Passion Play attracts massive crowds), but it simply doesn't work as a whole: the film changes tone a little too abruptly throughout; Stefan Arngrim is terrible as Andrew, Lucifer in human form, especially when he's hamming it up and howling like a banshee in his character's more demonic state; LaLoggia makes sure he gets his money's worth out of a smoke machine; and there are far too many boring scenes where very little of interest happens.

3.5 out of 10, generously rounded up for the decent tunes.

Angels Mikhail, Gabrielle and Rafael form a holy trinity living on Earth to defeat Satan, which they do as the film begins. Of course, he is born again in the 60s and, by the time 1981 rolls around, the Antichrist is a powerful handsome devil. Nah, just kidding. He is an Ian Curtis look-a-like high school geek named Andrew (Stefan Arngrim) who is looking to resurrect his army of the dead in order to rule the world or something. Of course, the reincarnated Angels are here to stop him with their glowing beams of light.

I'm not really sure where I fall on FEAR NO EVIL. It is definitely ambitious for a low budget feature and falls into the M.S.U. (Makin' Stuff Up) genre perfectly. It is almost like director Frank LaLoggia had two half finished scripts and threw them together. I would recommend it just for the dodge-ball bit (watch the hyped up coach) and the bizarre scene at the end where the film's big bully gets his comeuppance by growing boobs. WTF??? The high school scenes are really funny, like LaLoggia had no sense at all how people behaved in school. One surprising thing is the soundtrack which features The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Patti Smith, Boomtown Rats and Talking Heads. I guess back then music rights weren't outrageous like they are today.

I can't believe I've never heard of this before. Got it at the comic book show today. I'm remind of a better satanic school kid movie called 'Evilspeak'. Get that one if you can, but if you wind up with 'Fear no Evil' you will be entertained and surprised. During a showing of a Passion Play the crowd begins to bleed. Yes, there is quite a bit of religious matter in this movie. Angels in human form versus the devil. That is not all though. There are high school teens up to their 80's activities (having sex). Also, naked boys for an odd scene with a violent kiss. This movie is more homoerotic than 'Jeepers Creepers 2'! In the final scene you can see the devil boy's genitals if you pay close attention. I don't know why!?! Then, there are light shows and I expected the beams to come out of the screen in 3-D! Punk soundtrack with the Rezillos, Sex Pistols, Ramones, and Talking Heads.

Young high school misfit discovers he is the antichrist and gets revenge on his cruel classmates while fighting off two arch angels in human form. Good premise is well plotted, but some over the top acting, laughable special effects, and a disappointing finale ruin it. Good soundtrack though. Rated R; Graphic Nudity, Adult Themes, Violence, and Profanity.