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Post by Toasted Cheese on Oct 27, 2017 3:40:50 GMT
Now, Evilspeak-81' gets a lot of flack for it's cheese and over the top and phony looking gore moments, which only really come into play in the last 10mins. There are a few spots of cheesy violence scattered throughout. What this film does have to it's credit is Clint Howard, the military school setting, which is populated and run by a large contingency of jerks and jocks, and the harassment, abuse, bullying, self-important and arrogant attitudes that he has to put up with. In this respect, the film can tell quite an effective tale, because it is projected onto Howard's believable and sympathetic character. He stands out like a sore thumb, amongst all the stereotypes and caricatures of the other roles. His revenge is duly welcome, even if it is unintentionally hilarious. As much as I like Evilspeak, some of the special effects were sub-par. Like the obvious dummy of Sarge as he's getting his head twisted around. Yet some of the other effects were pretty good, and there are some effective horror moments in this Carrie-esque film. With opening sequence on the beach and the decapitation of the young woman, this is also an obvious latex mechanical dummy, but it was a good attempt at wanting to create a realistic looking effect. What they needed to do here, is have filmed the sequence in the evening, perhaps lit with firelight and not make it look so obvious. The film is also not particularly scary, or even that suspenseful, but it does build itself up to a creative and perhaps even original climax that is a hoot to watch. When this was first released where I was living at the time, it only received two showings on a Sunday weekend double bill session. It was paired with Carrie and advertised as a revenge double of two misfits in the paper. I wasn't able to see it at the time, due to the age restriction and only got to see Carrie a couple of years later at a retro cinema, and Evilspeak on vhs in the mid 80's. I don't ever recall seeing Evilspeak advertised as a cinema screening again, and it was difficult to track down at a rental vhs store. |
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