A Day of Judgment

Though many had told me to stay far away from this one, I persisted and gave it a shot and I wish I had listened. If you're interested in seeing a bunch of community theater actors walking around and hamming it up with very little in terms of tension or scares, maybe this will hit the right spot for you, but this is barely a horror film. If anything, it feels like an educational film with an few moments of a horror film spliced in just so it would sell.

What an oddity… although while I didn't think it entirely comes together it still stormed up an imaginatively off-kilter, if not totally realized concept within an under-produced low-cost production. I wanted to like it more than I actually did, as where it disappointed was its lame, if cop-out ending in what feels like nothing more than pushy church propaganda. In the end, it didn't make me see the light. Forgive me for my sins.

In the 1920's, reverend Cage leaves his church as the people don't attend his sermons, which sees them no longer god-fearing in their abandonment of the ten commandments as greed, jealousy, and murder finds its way in the lives of the town's folks. While leaving the secluded rural town Cage encounters a dark, forbidding figure with a scythe that moves on to the town visiting those corrupted souls.

Labelling it under horror might feel misleading, as while the moments with the Angel of Death are ominously atmospheric and daunting (like the excellent introduction, where the church organ music makes way for a bellowing, uneasy spook score filled with a grim-like intensity)… however most of the time is spent on the soapy episodic dramas (five sets) of sinful town's folks breaking the ten commandments and then during a dark, windy night getting a visit from the reaper. These moments are subtly done in a visual sense --- concentrating on imagery like shadows and angles, but upon each death it gets nastier, especially the graphic fate of the final victim. Still the reaper sees too little time, but alone his appearance (that's the few glimpses) manages a cold shiver.

Director C.D.H Reynolds static handling has some pacing issues and it can look makeshift, but there's an authentic period style created and some eerie passages are etched. The material is thoughtfully written, painting the many dark facets of the human psyche with a cautionary irony to its developments. Nonetheless the tone is all over the place, making it feel somewhat half-baked and too black and white. The performances are quite raw, but acceptable. While you could say there was room for improvement, it still delivered a fascinating pitch even with its limitations.

From Earl Owensby, the North Carolina-based producer / distributor of various independent horror & exploitation pictures of the 70s & 80s, comes this interesting, well-intentioned film. It takes place in a rural town in the 30s, and the local pastor (played by the director, Charles Reynolds) is packing up and leaving because he feels that he's failed to inspire the citizens. And these citizens are a pretty rotten lot, committing some of the seven deadly sins and basically being unpleasant to be around. Then a mysterious character in black begins materializing and punishing them for their sins.

'A Day of Judgment' is more of a melodrama, that spends a lot of time detailing these characters' lives, than true horror film. Touches of supernatural horror only come along at select points, although the finale does get pretty dark. The film is light on gore, although there is one highly amusing decapitation. A good part of the appeal lies in the hope that we will see some of these despicable people get the comeuppance waiting for them: a grouchy old widow (Helene Tryon), a stereotypical, greedy banker (William T. Hicks), adulterers (Larry Sprinkle, Careyanne Sutton), a paranoid drunk (Brownlee Davis) who feels persecuted, etc. The no-name cast is generally pretty good, especially those playing the less-than-honorable individuals. The film is also well-made, and atmospheric, but goes on a little long, losing a little momentum during its final third. It may test the patience of some viewers who hope for more actual horror during the run time. But it IS worth watching, especially for those people who like discovering genre entries like this that are a little more off-the-beaten-path. It's up to the individual viewer how much they respond to the way that the story is resolved.

Jerry Rushing, who plays the Sheriff, was also the coach in the slasher "Final Exam"; in real-life, he helped to inspire the main characters in the feature "Moonrunners" and the subsequent series 'The Dukes of Hazzard'.

Six out of 10.

IMDb erroneously lists Christopher Reynolds as the director of Day of Judgment. The actual director is Charles Reynolds (C.D.H. Reynolds), no relation to Christopher Reynolds. I contacted the site some years ago about this, but they seem loathe to correct the mistake. IMDb also lists the filming location as Wilmington, NC. The film was actually one of many made at Earl Owensby's studios (E.O. Corp) in Shelby, NC, in the western part of the state, hours from Wilmington. Presumably the mistake is that Wilmington would later enjoy something of a filming boom, but this has no relation to the film or to the E.O. Corp. User reviews have consistently commented on the lousy ending. Here's the real story. The original screenplay had a different ending that avoided the horror genre, and was prompted by the recent success of a Johnny Cash film that was playing well on the church circuit. But when the shooting phase was complete, and C.D.H. Reynolds (director) had left town, the marketing department determined that the film really needed to be a horror film to be successful. Following this decision, a different director was quickly brought in to re-film a horror ending.

Billed as a horror film in the midst of the slasher cycle, A Day of Judgement can't help but disappoint anyone expecting a straightforward horror flick and it's easy to understand why it's still struggling to find an audience all these years later.

It's like a silly Christian scare film crossed with A Christmas Carol about a bunch of small town sinners in the 1920's being given karmic justice in the form of a grim reaper-esque black cloaked figure who gets them pulled into hell by zombie-like hands or decapitates them.

Performances are spirited and it's not a badly made film in the technical sense, but not much is really going on and the most interesting subplot (there are many!) involves the younger wife of a town businessman carrying on an affair with one of her husband's employees.