ES-III

Here's another film that was marketed well, but failed to deliver. Catching the tail-end of the Satan boom (`The Omen,' `God Told Me To,' `The Amityville Horror,' `Alucarda,' etc.) ushered in by `The Exorcist,' `Fear No Evil' attempts to mine gold from all predecessors, but instead comes up with a highly clichéd, highly tedious film that brings Lucio Fulci's `Gates of Hell' (which came out two years later) to mind for me. The film offers up a ridiculous prologue before the credits run, then adds another when they're done, setting viewers up for a story of a hapless, effeminate anti-Christ (Stefan Arngrim) who must contend with two meddlesome arch angels in human form (a young woman and an older, pious woman, played beautifully by Elizabeth Hoffman, the one person who could act in this flick). Arngrim, especially toward the film's end, looks more like Brian Eno or Gary Numan gone goth – pale, ostentatious, androgynous, and emaciated. And while director Frank LaLoggia puts together competent scenes – the dodge-ball incident, the dog's blood occurrence, the town's annual sea-side re-enactment of the `Passion Play,' the bloody baptism – his plotting and pacing are just atrocious! Everything seems jumbled together, somehow linked conveniently to Satan… and because it's `supernatural,' plot-holes never have to be filled! An optimist when it comes to film, I actually thought all the little intricacies were going to converge into something. Instead, I was treated to a last-ditch effort that added zombies (for no reason whatsoever), a hokey laser-beam showdown (not as bas as `The Manitou'), and absolutely no fear factor. To the film's credit, there's a bizarre homoerotic undertone running through the film, which we first see in a high-school gym shower scene. The school's sexually-active, chauvinistic, burn-out/thug sexually harasses Arngrim while they're both naked, then engages in a full-on kiss with him (for laughs, I guess). Still later, the two kiss again, and (making a reference to an earlier marijuana joke) the thug suddenly grows breasts (Satanic augmentation at work). Personally, I don't see many occult films with this angle, so it was a bit refreshing and disconcerting. Outside of that, this film has one hell of a soundtrack -- the Sex Pistols, the Talking Heads, and Richard Hell, doing "Blank Generation.' This movie runs 94 minutes long, but it seems like an eternity in Hell for a good soundtrack and one weird transexual scene!

Well, I didn't laugh even once at this muddled, unfunny heap of film, which begins with a very boring, very unsmiling skit that centers around Cat Swimming instruction. It moves into other tedious skits like `The Church of the Jack Lord" (a Church of the Sub-Genius styled farce that looks great on paper) and a moment with Dan Aykroyd's deformed feet, not to mention the highly dim-witted "Laser Bra 2000" and a montage of male commentary called "Beautiful Women Love Disgusting Men," where the film unloads all of its cameos at once: Jane Curtin, Carrie Fisher, Teri Garr, Joan Hackett, Deborah "Blondie" Harry, Margot Kidder, Wendie Malick, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner, and Loretta Tupper. That said, you can probably guess how misleading the box is that professes appearances from this bevy of stars! Dan Aykroyd is in some of the skits, and there's further cameos from people like Paul Shaffer and Bill Murray (who's even less funny here than in his cameo as Lefty Schwartz in `Loose Shoes'). Alas, not even the footage of Klaus Nomi, Sid Vicious, or Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band (which is way too long and utterly stupid – the Tubes they weren't!) helps this disorder. The one redeeming skit is called "Christmas on Other Planets.' "Tunnel Vision," `Amazon Women on the Moon,' `The Kentucky Fried Movie,' and even `The Boob Tube' and "Jokes My Folks Never Told Me" (groan) are much, much better than this!