DEADLY BLESSING

In a small Pennsylvanian town, an Amish-type community live a simple life by farming off the land and sticking to their own kind. Their God-fearing ways lead to them accusing any outsiders of being servants of "the incubus" - the demon they fear as superstition. Or, as one character later puts it, "some sort of devil that seduces the faithful while they sleep"...

Led by religious zealot Isaiah (Ernest Borgnine), one of the most vocal of his sect is ugly William (Michael Berryman). He's made a habit of chasing local non-Hittite girl Faith (Lisa Hartman) away from her paintings of landscapes with loud declarations of the above accusations.

But there is one family in this town that are under even more scrutiny from the Hittites: ex-sect member Jim (Douglas Barr), who now just wants to lead a quiet life on his farm, and his out-of-towner wife Martha (Maren Jensen).

Following an altercation one afternoon with William, Jim meets an untimely demise one evening soon after in a freak tractor accident. Martha is the only one in attendance at her husband's swift funeral, although a group of the Hittites do loiter overlooking proceedings from on the horizon. "They usually only do that when it's one of their own" observes the gravedigger...

Why Martha doesn't just up sticks from this weird CHILDREN OF THE CORN-esque scenario post-haste is anyone's guess, but instead she invites two of her city friends to come and stay with her for a while. Enter the attractive Lana (Sharon Stone) and Vicky (Susan Buckner).

The girls get reacquainted in Martha's farmhouse but, before long, strange things once again begin happening. Lana starts suffering from horrendous dreams (I'm sure everyone is aware of the infamous 'spider' scene) and the killings gather momentum. But who is behind them ... and why?

Based on a story by Glenn M Benest and Matthew Barr, and developed into a screenplay by that pair in conjunction with the specially drafted-in Wes Craven (who also directs), DEADLY BLESSING is a mildly diverting slice of American Gothic that belongs to a small group of genre films which employ the weird, secular Amish community as their backdrop.

Certainly, this allows for a fair deal of atmospheric rural cinematography and a convincing sense of 'fish out of water' syndrome as soon as the city girls enter this odd environment. The religious aspects of the script are alternately effective and overplayed (Berryman's lines are laughably over-boiled and delivered with a minimum of subtlety). It can't be ignored; some of the preachy dialogue does indeed slow the pace of the film dramatically.

In fact, DEADLY BLESSING is in no rush to ratchet up the tension. It has an inconsistent pace which brings me to recall a criticism a reader once made in Fangoria upon the theatrical release of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Their observation at the time was that Craven's films look and feel like TV movies for the most part, only ever showing creative sparks during the horror set-pieces. While I don't necessarily agree on the whole - films like THE HILLS HAVE EYES and THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT are, I feel, master classes in raw horror - I can certainly agree that the likes of SHOCKER, DEADLY FRIEND and, yes, DEADLY BLESSING do suffer from this condition.

And so, DEADLY BLESSING only ever really comes to life during its terror sequences. Although, even these are pretty tame compared to some of his other films (and I include ELM STREET in there). Any bloodletting is very minor, while the scares are extremely subdued - as if the producers had imposed a certain rating on the director.

Don't get me wrong, the Southern country feel is well evoked and the style does lend the film a singular atmosphere. But the tone is inconsistent and the script really doesn't develop any characters satisfactorily. Jensen, from TV's "Battlestar Galactica", does little to elicit audience empathy as the female lead, either.

Borgnine's always a pleasure to watch though (even when he's acting pretty badly, as he does here) and it's always interesting to see Stone in her most notorious pre-fame role.

Without giving too much away to first-timers, the film was tampered with by its American producers who tagged on an unnecessary ending which effectively robs the story of all its ambiguity. Although the original British cinema release of the film wisely removed this sequence, it's been present on all domestic releases since ... and it turns up here too.

DEADLY BLESSING was one of the first horror films of any note to become available on sell-through video in the UK, courtesy of Polygram's budget label Channel 5 (remember them?). Its presence was less prominent on British DVD, until Arrow Video released the film as a special edition in late 2011.

They've now deemed fit to re-release the film in a dual format blu-ray and DVD combo pack, which means that after years of being unfairly represented in domestic circles DEADLY BLESSING can be enjoyed in a package fitting of its minor cult status.

The blu-ray disc was sent for review purposes, and proffers the film (uncut, with the aforementioned tacked-on ending) in a mainly clean 1080p HD presentation. Detail is noticeably increased over previous DVD releases such as the aforementioned Arrow offering and Umbrella's Australian disc.

The film has also recently been released onto blu-ray in the US by Scream Factory. I've not seen their disc, which is locked to region A, but I understand the transfers are very similar, with Arrow's boasting a slightly brighter scheme.

Certainly, the film does look nicely bright in this new HD offering. Colours are decent but slightly faded as are blacks, and there's a welcome filmic quality to the texture and fine grain evident throughout. A minor softness appears to be inherent of how the film was shot; close-ups are the best-served.

English audio comes in 2.0 LPCM and is a fair job, clean and clear for the duration of playback. Optional English subtitles are well-written and easy to read at all times.

The disc opens to an animated main menu page. From there, pop-up menus include a scene-selection menu allowing access to the film via 12 chapters.

Craven's audio commentary track kicks off the disc's worthy bonus features. It's moderated to good effect by David Gregory and has been previously released on both the aforementioned Arrow and Umbrella DVDs. No matter, it makes for a good listen in a fluent, informative manner.

Craven reiterates some of the above's points in a 12-minute featurette entitled "The Deadliest Director". Again, he discusses how he joined the project as part of a rewriting mission and elaborates on the appeal of the God-fearing Amish as its source of terror.

Even better is a 29-minute featurette on Berryman's career and in particular the films he made with Craven - hence its title, "Craven Images". Despite an overlong intro, this turns into a highly engrossing and affable chat with the iconic horror actor. What's more, it's peppered with some very nice clips from key films such as DEADLY BLESSING and THE HILLS HAVE EYES too.

Berryman is also on hand to present a 34-second video introduction to the film in typically light-hearted manner.

"Deadly Desires" is a 14-minute feature which looks more at the Amish setting for the film. This interesting mini-documentary is hosted by co-writer and executive producer Benest.

Finally, the film's original theatrical trailer is typically trashy in that inimitable late 70s/early 80s style we all love so much. It runs for just under 2-and-a-half minutes and is 16x9 enhanced.

Although not provided for review purposes, this 2-disc set (which incorporates a DVD including the same contents) also comes with double-sided cover artwork and a collector's booklet containing liner notes by Kim Newman.

All in all, DEADLY BLESSING (and not DEADLY BLESSINGS as Berryman calls it in his intro) gets a solid blu-ray release courtesy of the fine folk at Arrow Video.

Review by Stuart Willis