Servants of Twilight

My review was written in May 1991 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

Breathless suspense denotes this horror thriller, an unbelievable yet engrossing exercise in paranoia. Except for its B-picture lack of adequate production values, "The Servants of Twilight" would stand a theatrical shot.

Invading "The Omen" territory minus special efects, this pic demonstrates that novelist dean R. Koontz could be the next bigscreen brand name in a genre dominated by Stephen King and Clive Barker. His plotting here is functional and elevated by director Jeffrey Obron to a fever pitch.

Told in flashback by bearded private eye Bruce Greenwood to his shrink Jack Kehoe, story has the same feel as the classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".

Months earlier, clean-shaven Greenwood decided to go back after a year's layoff to help beautiful mom in distress Belinda Bauer. She and he young son (Jarrett Lennon) are being terrorized by religious fanatic Grace Zabriskie and her Church of the Twilight zealots.

They've tabbed Lennon as the young anti-Chrit, and, before you can say Damien, they're making life for him and Bauer hell. When Greenwood's operatives are killed, he and the client duo take to the road, with Zabriskie's henchmen always on their tale.

The rapid succession of shootouts and narrow escapes is hard to believe but well staged for cliffhanger excitement.

Broad hints establish early on who's the fink among the good guys, and only a neophyte viewer won't suspect cute little Lennon of being too good to be true. Except for some pulsating bladders on the neck at the film's climax and some unimpressive bat effects, the film is not fantastic enough along the way to impress genre fans.

If the goal was to root the action in a routine policier fromat, success is without reward.

Zabriskie of "Twin Peaks" is perfectly cast as the fanatical villainess. Greenwood and Bauer are empathetic leads, and grotesque-looking Carell Struyckenis the most frightening henchman since his role model, Michael Berryman of "The Hills Have Eyes". Visuals are mundane and mainly lack atmosphere.

Absent elsewhere is the poetry of an eerie overhead vista of Greenwood literally going crazy in a pet cemetery.

I remember when this movie came out and the video stores really tried to hype this film. Of course, the film went into obscurity for a while and I hadn't seen it for years. I had actually forgotten the name and that it was based off of a Dean Koontz story. With a little bit of searching I was able to watch this movie again and it was just as OK as the first time I had viewed it.

The story is nothing new, just told from a slightly different angle. A six year old boy by the name of Joey is being terrorized by a cult known as "Twilight". This cult believes the end is coming and believes that Joey is the start of it. They believe he is the anti-Christ. Joey's mother hires a detective named Charlie to help them. Charlie soon realizes that this cult means business as they seem to have cultist everywhere and they just can't escape them, no matter where they run to. This all leads to a climax giving you the question whether Joey is or is not the anti-Christ.

Sure, the storyline is nothing new, but, you can still have fun with it. The acting is really not that bad as we have a decent cast with a few familiar faces which include Belinda Bauer (Robocop 2), Grace Zabriskie, Carel Struycken (The Addams Family) and Bruce Greenwood. Also, the movie is directed by a classic B movie director of the 80's, Jeffrey Obrow, who gave us such fine films as The Kindred and The Power.

Well, I think the movie is worth checking out. You won't waste your time. 7/10

A woman and her son are attacked by strange people, and they hire a private detective agency to protect them and learn why. Somehow, they can afford having the entire agency on their case, even having as many as three of them staying with them around the clock at times. The detectives aren't particularly good at anything except for being killed, which takes care of the problem of affording them all, I suppose.

Every once in a while, the movie remembers that there was a poorly-defined framing device at the beginning that made everything that followed a reminiscence rather than a current event. So, very occasionally, the lead actor will say something in voice-over ("that's when I first talked to you"), which is silly and totally unnecessary.

The acting in the movie is absolutely dreadful. Some of the actors are capable of acting; they've displayed some skill in other movies, but none of that is evident here. The little boy who is the center of the story is unappealing; as with many kids in 1970s Italian horror movies, to look at him is to want him to die. Thus, one's sympathies are with the cultists who want to kill him, even though they're scarcely appealing at all either.

The video box says the movie is rated R. How that could be possible, I can't imagine. A number of people are killed, but the violence is hardly even the equal of a television cop show, and not that of a horror movie. There is no nudity. There is little, if any bad language.

That summary alone isn't really saying much at all, especially for those unlucky bastards who forced themselves to sit through the particularly dreadful "Phantoms", "Hideaway", or ANY of the "Watchers" movies. That being said, this film about a devoutly religious cult headed by a pre-Twin Peaks Grace Zabriskie, who are hellbent (pun intended) on killing a six year old boy (young Andrew dice clay himself, Jerrot Lennon) whom they believe to be the current incarnation of the anti-Christ and willing to kill anyone who get in their way is passable entertainment if you can get past the overtly melodramatic beginning. Belinda Bauer as the mother of Joey is a big letdown, primarily because she's one-dimensional, well more so than the other cardboard cutout characters populating the movie, but also because she didn't follow up her terrific nudity in "Winter Kills" (only bring that up because one scene promises nudity, but then the director choose to pussy out). The ending is groan-inducing and silly. But there are still some unintentional laughs to be had here. Oh and I felt the need to call it the best THEATRICAL film only because I actually found the made for TV flick "Intensity" to be quite good and the best Koontz adaption put out thus far.

My grade: C-

Read the book; watched the movie. The changed ending moved the category from psychological drama to horror by changing the character of the boy, but that was probably intentional. Production values were poor, sound and music likewise below par. This could have been another Indiana Jones with some more effort and money. Strongly suggest a remake; the story is good enough. I give it a 5/10 for entertainment value.