Fear No Evil (1981)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: Satan is back on earth as a 18 year old high school senior, and its gonna take one of his classmates (who just happens to be the Archangel Gabriel) to stop him and his tacky fashion shows.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• Starts off with a quick recap of the whole Satan versus God thing in case you haven’t seen the movie or read the book.
• Why is Benjamin Franklin dressed as a priest?
• There are so many dead dogs hanging from the satanic alter, I almost went with an easy Chinese-restaurant-kitchen joke.
• The actor playing the priest really made sure he missed when beating the possessed woman’s head in.
• What possessed Satan to possess a guy that looked like Nick Cave?
• No wait, now he looks like Jerry Only from The Misfits.
• This is one Hell (rimshot) of a turnout for a christening.
• The baby’s father looks like Ernest P. Worrel’s doppelganger.
• As soon as the baby is christened, both he and the tabernacle begin to hemorrhage blood. Whaddya say we hit the throttle on the punch and cookies folks and call it a day?
• A time-passing montage with arguing parents as the VO. Ah, the 1980’s American teen’s life.
• Andrew’s shadow does all of his walking for him, is he Peter Pan?
• Andrew just watches as his parents fight and his mom gets brain damaged by a falling iron. How Satanic.
• Right on, The Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays” is playing in the school.
• This classroom is filled with kids who didn’t make it past the first casting call for the Sweathogs.
• Even the anti-Christ rocked a Members Only jacket in the eighties.
• The girl gang known as “The B’s” looks like the farm team for “The Pink Ladies.”
• “Anarchy in the UK” seems apropos for recess.
• The actor who played the kid breaking into the car is obviously not a smoker in real life.
• Andrew looks like a very young Michael C. Hall, yet not as creepy as Dexter. How’d he do that?
• Andrew’s father, by his own admittance failed 10^th grade algebra twice, hence his occupation as a mailman.
• These flashbacks with the archangels are annoying as fuck.
  

  Five! Ha ha ha! Five inverted crosses!

• Andrew keeps his invalid mother in a locked room with plenty of Marlboro lights. Where did Satan get such a bad rap?
• We are treated to a long backstory of the unfinished castle that’s in town. I bet we’re going to come back here soon.
• With one touch, Andrew turns the castle ruins into a laser Pink Floyd show.
• I was waiting to hear The Ramones, I knew they’d show up in the soundtrack eventually.
• The gym coach takes dodge ball way too fucking seriously.
• If the Archangels do manage to kill Satan one of these days, what will they do with the rest of their lives? Take turns being the Dread Pirate Roberts?
• Why was Satan so lazy with naming his son the “anti-Christ?” He couldn’t think of anything cooler? Whenever the Yankees play a ballgame, it’s not against the “anti-Yankees.”
• The priests are always the last ones in town to believe in the really evil shit going on around them.
• This town performs the Passion Play every summer? Whatever happened to The Rocky Horror Picture Show?
• If Tony hasn’t made you throw up by this point in the movie, you held your lunch longer than I did.
• When did this turn into the video for “Thriller?”
• The entire audience ended up dying from stigmata wounds in this year’s Passion Play performance. Fuck The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
• Andrew gave Tony a pair of tits faster than McNamara and Troy ever could.
  

  Here is Satan modeling something new from Vicky’s, “Tricks Are Really Treats” line.

• So Satan comes back to earth in human form just so he can model the entire inventory of Victoria’s Secret? Bill and Ted were right; we were totally lied to by our album covers.
• These special effects are shit even by 1981 standards.
• One more giant laser show and boo-ya! Satan’s dead. Get home safe folks. Next week is laser Yes, and we’re thinking of not doing the Passion Play ever again if that’s cool with everyone.
• If it wasn’t for the end credits telling me otherwise, I would have sworn Ryan Murphy was involved in this somehow.
  

  I really want to make a Penn State joke about this picture.

Scare Level: If by some chance you can manage to get scared through peals of gut-crippling laughter – then this movie might be categorized as somewhat scary.

Gore Level: Some blood here and there, and some semi-scary zombie makeup.

Nudity Level: A couple of boobs and some buffalo shots.

Best Line: “He was a good priest, he didn’t kill anybody. Everybody killed him.” Right up there with, “You’re not dying Sonny, you’re killing everyone around ya.”

Best Scene: When Tony learns that one of the urban myths about male marijuana consumption is frighteningly true.

Worst Scene: When Tony shows his true colors and leaves his girlfriend to the horde of zombies that he just promised to protect her from

Level of Hell: During the Passion Play the kids in the audience think the actor playing Jesus really is Jesus. Kids, if the guy ever decides to come back he won’t be wearing Levis and a flannel shirt. The whole grunge thing was a long time ago, off to Limbo with the lot of you.

Overall: I don’t understand why the filmmakers went with homoerotic overtones set on top of the oldest story of good versus evil known to mankind; which is probably what New Line Cinema thought when they saw the dailies of A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2. It’s not a very good movie but it does have its moments and it does deserve a place in the pantheon of eighties horror.

Score: 4 Cannabis-Infused Man Boobs (out of 10)