Lucifer

An old story with a fresh making. An entertainer which will give goosebumps to mohanlal fans while an average experience for normal audience

The opening of "Goodnight,God Bless" is quite unsettling and memorable:we see a priest with a rosary walking near the school before murdering a young school teacher with a butcher knife and then shooting 5 school children on the playground and wounding countless others.This sequence is shot in chaotic and hand-held style that certainly packs the punch.Unfortunately after this nasty beginning the film quickly goes downhill.First of all it has more to do with dull cop drama than slasher flick.There are a couple of thrills including the scene of the woman chased through the forest,but the acting is so-so and the ending is abrupt and comes out-of-nowhere.It's a crying shame that "Lucifer" is so terminally boring.4 out of 10.

This extremely rare and mostly unheard of slasher was actually the debut movie of British-born director John Eyres. Although his name may not immediately ring bells in the heads of most movie buffs, he did at least manage to carve himself a career out of directing mostly straight to video films, which include MONOLITH with Bill Paxton and another new age splatter flick RIPPER. The latter is most memorable for giving glamour queen Kelly Brook a stab at acting although it also disappeared almost as soon as it was unleashed.

It sets the scene with a killer priest who shows people his rosary beads and then butchers them remorselessly. The plot kicks in when Detectives Joe Yamovitch (Frank Rozelaar Green) and John Brett (Jared Morgan) head up an investigation and go to interview the survivor of the maniacal clergyman's first massacre. However the witness is a young girl named Mandy (Jane Price) and before long Joe begins a relationship with her pretty mother Lisa (Emma Sutton). Meanwhile the ruthless assassin has located the child and begins stalking them seeking to kill the only person who could possibly identify him. Can Joe keep his promise and protect the petrified couple from the deranged madman…

GOODNIGHT GODBLESS is credited with one of the most shocking openings that I've ever seen in a horror film. It's so startling that I'm surprised that the film wasn't banned because of it. The Insane churchman is seen leisurely strolling past a school playground stroking his rosary beads. He is spotted by one of the many children who are recreating behind the large spiked fence. As he reaches the gate, a teacher - who indeed seems bewildered to see a priest - approaches him. Suddenly he draws a large knife from within his jacket and stabs her before reaching for a handgun and firing randomly at the fleeing kiddies. Soon after we learn that he managed to kill five of the unfortunate juniors. Now this sort of approach is usually well avoided by most slasher movies. I must admit that it's not something that most filmmakers would want to add to their movie. Dumb fornicating teens getting slaughtered the average viewer can easily handle, but young innocent children getting ‘shot at' usually doesn't bode to well with Joe public and especially with the then cautious censors. Eyres certainly went all out on the exploitation for his opening and to be honest he manages to pull it off extremely well. A simple yet haunting score accompanies the scene and the blurry and unclear cinematography helps to make things all the more eerie. Although there are no actual graphic visions of the bullets hitting the victims – mind you 30 seconds was edited from the BBFC version – we catch the general gist of what's going on easily. It was certainly a brave attempt by Eyres to shock the viewer and to be honest he does just that. But I knew that with a beginning that caught you off guard so surprisingly, he was going to have one hell of a job on his hands to make sure that the rest of the runtime lived up to his set expectations.

Sadly from then on things don't impress as much as they could have. The storyline falls foul to the usual rotten clichés and things can't help but feel lame after such a drastic launch. The leads are surprisingly likeable and accessible, although a little more character building certainly wouldn't have gone a miss. In one part, young Mandy asks Joe to accompany her and her mother out on a date only five minutes after meeting them! The guy only says a few words and he's found himself a relationship! Makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong! Although amusing in a daft kind of way, moments like that only make the screenplay feel like it was somewhat rushed through with minimal thought. The plot also has difficulty making it's mind up how it wants to play ball. None of the victims can give a positive description of the killer and we the viewer never get to see his face. Now in a horror flick this usually means that it's one of the cast who's slicing everyone up and it's our job to guess whom it is. But just when you think you've picked out the culprit, the inexplicable ending left me totally bewildered.

The director manages the odd interesting shot, but the cinematography was so blurry that anything that might have been remotely creditable was too damn hard to make out. This was most evident in the night scenes that were incredibly poorly lighted. At times the pace began to dwindle leaving you hoping that the killer would hurry up and put in a reappearance sometime soon. It also looks obvious that far too much plot was wasted covering the silly liaison that ensued between the leads and more time should have been given to the assassin who certainly stole the show with his chilling butchery.

GOODNIGHT GODBLESS does manage to save itself from damning mediocrity. It's certainly amateur but can't help but feel impressively eerie mostly because of the simple yet effective score. It's also nice to see London as a backdrop instead of the usual American locations. It certainly starts well and is worth tracking down just for that impressive scene alone. Although it may not live up to its counterparts from across the sea I recommend it to slasher fans for the few moments where it manages to shine. It isn't great but it's certainly interesting

There are two things that make this film really special: an amazing opening sequence which is dramatic, edited interestingly, atmospheric, and even somewhat shocking. What a way to open a film. Also worth a note is the amazing box art. And the back of the box continues the Magnum Entertainment tradition of showing only the bloody deaths from the film. But, yeah, to just judge this film on those two elements alone would make it pretty noteworthy.

Unfortunately, the film continues. And while it's not as bad as you'd think, it still kind of goes nowhere. The whole thing has a really dark atmosphere and a mean-spirited tone that makes it interesting, but the whole thing just kind of limps along at a slow pace and doesn't really go anywhere. I gotta give credit to the ending, though. It's not really good, but it's so abrupt and out of nowhere and it resolves absolutely nothing! Very interesting.

This film's just bizarre enough to be worth a watch though don't expect much.

Goodnight God Bless was much better than I expected after seeing the preview that appears before the film on the VHS version. The movie does have quite an intense and shocking (if not bloody) opening sequence. This is a decent mix of religious horror, cop drama and straight-up slasher 80's films with an original premise and some believable acting from unfamiliar faces, namely Emma Sutton in the lead role. A maniac is murdering people and witnesses claim its a priest. Some genuine suspense, not much gore or skin, but entertaining. If you enjoyed Maniac Cop or God Told Me To then check it out. Not the best of B-Movies but worth a look.