DEADLY BLESSING

    

STATS:

Deadly Blessing
Directed by Wes Craven
      
WHA’ HAPPENED?
You thought Amish people were bad. (Wait. Did you?) Just wait till you meet the Hittites, these crazy farmers that get caught up in a slow-moving horror mystery involving tractors, snakes, and someone dropping a live tarantula into Sharon Stone's mouth.
     
FAVORITE QUOTE:
A poor manchild has been killed.
     

ISN’T THAT SPECIAL?

Why did I watch this movie? Well, it was directly by Wes Craven. And I’m a completist. I was sure it couldn’t be worse than My Soul to Take. But the fact that this is mostly known as the movie where Sharon Stone got a live tarantula in her mouth tells me that it wasn’t exactly one of Craven's top tier movies.
          

SHIRTS AND SKINS:

Some PG female nudity. Including a bathtub scene with an overly curious snake. Similar to Nancy’s bathtub scene in the first Nightmare on Elm Street. If Mr. Craven has to rip off other movies, they might as well be his own.
    

BLOOD AND GUTS:

Nothing particularly memorably. Most deaths occur in shadowy barns and whatnot, so there isn’t a lot to see. Apparently, Amish country isn’t very well-lit. Who knew! But that guy from The Hills Have Eyes gets probably the longest death scene. So there’s that.
    

PLOT HOLES AND CRAZINESS:

The reveal of the killer is sudden and kind of dumb, but holy crap does the film have an awesome ending. Think Drag Me to Hell, but completely unearned. Like, if Freddy Krueger showed up at the end of Scream. It makes no damn sense, but it is probably the only thing I will remember about this movie in a month. That and the scene where Sharon Stone gets a tarantula in her mouth. Now that’s the stuff that dreams are made of.
           

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Ernest Borgnine was born to play a crazy Hittite farmer. Forget his Oscar-winning role in Marty. THIS is his legacy. Aside from him, though, everyone else is pretty much sleeping through this film, especially Martha, the main girl, who goes from constipated to dizzy without ever registering terror. All-in-all, a forgetting slog of a film, even for its short run-time, but be sure to stay for that cuckoo-bananas ending. You will not regret it.

CAST A DEADLY SPELL

STATS:

Cast a Deadly Spell

1991

Directed by: Martin Campbell

Written by: Joseph Dougherty (currently producing Pretty Little Liars and, you know, swallowing his pride)

Starring: Fred Ward (Tremors), David Warner (every film except Tremors)

Seriously. Don’t you recognize him from everything?

He usually plays warlocks and professors and junk.

WHA’ HAPPENED?

As its VHS blurb says, “Imagine Who Framed Roger Rabbit? with witches and zombies instead of toons.” Now imagine that that’s a good thing, instead of a horrid cash-grab/copyright infringement. Basically, Fred Ward is a hard boiled private dick in an H. P. Lovecraft world. It is precisely as awesome as that sounds.

You can tell by the font that this is a TV movie.

WHAT YOU SAY?

“If you were sensitive at all, the air would crackle in your ears like wax paper. Things are in flux. The auras are bad. Me, I'm going to Florida.”

“Breathe out... slowly... do not gulp. If you do not breathe correctly, you do not move correctly. Pitiful. I can see the deadly hamburger has done its evil work.” (Wait. That’s actually from Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.)

ISN’T THAT SPECIAL?

This is an HBO TV-movie (possibly failed pilot?) from the early 90s, back when HBO was less reputable and more Fraggle-Rocky. It’s since been forgotten except by awesome blogs and the sizable network of Fred Ward fans (Fred-heads.)

SHIRTS AND SKINS:

This is a film noir spoof, so there aren’t a lot of shirtless scenes (basically none). But hey, there are vampires.

BLOOD AND GUTS:

A guy gets horribly hacked to death by incessant paper cuts.

If only…

A cross-dresser gets punched to death by a gargoyle.

If only…

RANDOM THOUGHTS:

So in this world, gremlins and gargoyles look really similar. It’s as if they were both puppets.

It’s a Fifinella. Look it up.

The twist ending is kind of a rip-off of Jim Carrey’s Once Bitten.

Fred-heads aren’t real, from what I can tell.

OK. IS IT GAY?

Well, it’s no Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins…

I’m not sure exactly what that means, exactly.

What I can tell you is that this film includes a beautiful femme fatale…

…that ends up being revealed as a man.

This guy. He was on Oz and Desperate Housewives, sooo…

This character is depicted as a typical femme fatale, a dangerous woman who does bad things in the name of love. The only difference is “her” gender. This is an extremely progressive statement in an old-fashioned genre. Sure, the character gets horribly murdered, but I really appreciated this turn, especially since I didn’t see it coming.

Because the film is suddenly and surprisingly progressive and outspoken about gay issues, I’d give this half a Rickie Martin.