Deadly Blessing

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                                         7*******skulls</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>1981/Color/104 Min./Embassy Home Entertainment & Polygram Pictures & Interplanetary Productions/Rated R </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Director...........Wes Craven (Chiller, The Hills Have Eyes, & Part II, Deadly Friend, Last House on the Left, A Nightmare on Elm St., Shocker, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Swamp Thing)</B></div> <div> <B>Screenplay......Glenn M. Benest & Matthew Barr & Wes Craven</B></div> <div> <B>Music...............James Horner </B></div> <div> <B>Producer.........Micheline Keller & Max Keller & Pat Herskovic</B></div> <div> <B>Executive Producer.....William Gilmore</B></div> <div> <B>Special Effects by Jack Bennett</B></div> <div> <B>From the story by Glenn M. Benest & Matthew Barr</B></div> <bR> <div> <B><U>Dramatis Personae</U></B></div> <div> <B>Martha.........Maren Jenson </B></div> <div> <B>Vicky..........Susan Buckner</B></div> <div> <B>Lana...........Sharon Stone (Basic Instinct, Total Recall, Sliver)</B></div> <div> <B>John Schmidt...Jeff East (The Campus Corpse, Pumpkinhead)</B></div> <div> <B>Faith..........Lisa Hartman (Tabitha-TV, Bodily Harm, The Take)</B></div> <div> <B>Louisa.........Lois Nettleton (Brass, Butterfly, Period of Adjustment)</B></div> <div> <B>Isaiah.........Ernest Borgnine</B></div> <div> <B>Melissa........Coleen Riley</B></div> <div> <B>Jim............Doug Barr</B></div> <div> <B>William Gluntz.Michael Berryman</B></div> <div> <B>Sheriff........Kevin Cooney</B></div> <bR> <div> <B><U>Critique</U></B><B>: For the most part the directing and production values and acting are first rate. The story has some intriguing twists, and the suspense is adroitly sustained. Just what Martha knows or suspects is kept nicely veiled. Surprisingly, too, Ernest Borgnine doesn't hurt the film at all. As long as he's a heavy he can be acceptable. A good example of that is Willard. There are sufficient problems, however, to keep this film down. Why the corny voice-over in the beginning and end? The music tends toward the Gregorian - inappropriate for Protestant America. Sharon Stone's acting is nothing to shout about. The big surprise ending is a bust, as so many surprise endings are. There are also some obvious loose ends that the big resolution doesn't really tie together.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Sexual Situations * Nudity * Violent * Not particularly Gory * No Strong Language * Blood *</B></div> <bR> <div> <B><U>Plot Summary</U></B><B>: A gruesome secret has been protected for generations in the "Hittite" backland. They are a traditionalist group that is still more conservative than the Amish. A woman is painting and a bald man lumbers up and destroys her painting, chasing her with apparently murderous intent and calling her "incubus". (apparently thinking she is under the influence of one.) He is saved by Jim on a tractor and her mother comes around. The people here don't cotton to such machines. Mother is a midwife and the man says he will shortly be in need of her services. The bald madman watches the tractor man and has obviously written "incubus" in red paint. The artist is working on a surrealist piece clearly out of step with the folk there. She tells her mother that she will especially like the next painting. Jim says he's an ex-"Hittite" now. Someone is approaching the house and observes them as the couple makes love. They hear a dog barking. Jim goes out to the barn to investigate and finds that the tractor has been turned on. He turns it off but as he turns around someone or something has turned the tractor on again and he is crushed beneath it. His wife is the only one at the funeral, though locals come and peer over the hill swinging incense. The bald Hittite and some others come to see the "evil" tractor. Just then the wife arrives and the Hittites scamper out except for the bald madman. She takes up a pitchfork and tries to find him in the dark barn. Two friends of Martha's, Lana and Vicky, arrive to comfort her. Isaiah had been furious that Jim had left the flock and dubbed his wife an "incubus". The bald Hittite, William, watches the wife undress in the window, but as he does so he is stabbed. Isaiah arrives with Matthew at the house of his dead son. THey are looking after the bald Hittite. Isaiah tells Matthew that she is with incubus. He apparently thinks she has seen the "boy". Lonna had a dream about a man with gray skin who changes into a spider. The spider whispered to her seductively. Martha appears to think more of this than she's letting on. Faith Stoeller, the artist, delivers some eggs. She doesn't like Hittites either. She bounces on Martha's bed in a strange way and this seems to disturb Martha. Vicky Anderson goes out for a jog and is attacked but she uses some mace on it. She runs into John Schmidt, Jim's brother. He seems not to agree with Jim's shunning. THey hit it off. Isaiah rides up in his buggy. When Vicky introduces herself he replies that they are the kindred of God and won't have to do with the serpent. Martha is still reluctant to go to the barn and is pleased when Lonna volunteers to get a tool. The barn door swings closed strangely. SHe props it open with a rock but it swings closed again. Shutters start closing crazily and then the chickens seem suddenly to be disturbed. Nice touch as she gets caught in some spiderwebbing. She hears something and climbs up through more webbing to the loft She seems to have given up the Vicky playing a trick theory. Someone jumps out at her and she tries to get away only to be stopped by the hanging body of William. The Hittites say the incubus is to blame. The sheriff suggests they pack up and leave. Someone approaches the house once again by night. Whoever it is has black gloves and enters the bathroom where Martha bathes. A large snake is left at the foot of the bathtub. it enters the tub with her. She manages to get out and bludgeons it with a poker. Isaiah gathers the flock. Little Leopold admits he dared William to enter the barn. His knuckles are thrashed. John is having a hard time waiting for his arranged marriage with Melissa. When Isaiah sees Melissa's torn dress, he insists John follow him to the barn for a thrashing. When John resists Isaiah sends him out of the flock. Martha has bought a gun. Louise, Faith's wife, shows up at Martha's with her hat. She also warns of the Hittites. As Lana lies abed someone comes to her and clutches her head. She dreams of the spider. She opens her mouth and the spider drops into her mouth. She awakens choking and screaming. Strangely all the windows in the house have been opened. Vicky finds John in town and pretty soon it's a driving lesson and groping in the front seat. Melissa seems to know what's happening and goes for a knife and goes running through the woods. They start to hear something out in the dark. John goes out to investigate but finds nothing. Soon he is slashed through the roof and the car is set on fire, consuming them both.  There's blood in the milk carton. Lonna engages in some very bad acting describing how locking out death is impossible. Martha shushes her up. Next she finds a dummy in a black suit in her closet. She rushes out and finds that Jim's grave has been unearthed and that the body has been replaced with a gaggle of live chickens. Martha goes out into the barn and finds a painting of herself as an evil familiar and then finds Jim's body propped up. Apparently Faith's last painting was all it was advertised to be. Melissa comes sleepwalking to Louise and Faith's house as Martha arrives ready to confront them. Faith, it turns out, is male. It appears Faith and Louise are behind the whole thing. Faith is not (fully?) female. It appears she was the messenger of the incubus all along, and William had it right in the first place. Jim comes to Martha in a dream and then the incubus comes through the floorboards dragging her to hell. Huh?</B></div> </td> </tr></table></body>