Fear No Evil

Watched September 22, 2013

1981
Starring: Stefan Arngrim, Elizabeth Hoffman, Kathleen Rowe McAllen

This film covers the eternal struggle between reincarnations of Lucifer and Gabrielle, I guess they will constantly battle each other until the end of time.  We see an old man version of Gabrielle find Lucifer and stab him with a special golden staff. Now that this Lucifer is dead, he will be reborn and the battle of good versus evil will continue.

Next we see a baby, Andrew, at his baptism. As the holy water is poured over him he begins to bleed, squirting his mother in the face with blood. Wind blows through the church disrupting the ceremony,  in fear Andrew's mother runs out of the church with him. Next we see their house, over time it falls apart, it's a metaphor for how Andrew is ruining his parent's lives. His parents have a very strained relationship with each other and it seems like it's because Andrew has been such a terrible child. Now it's his 18th birthday, his mother made him a cake, but in lighting the candles his father drops it on the floor. The parents yell at each other and the mom fall down, when she tries to get up an iron falls on her head.

At school, Andrew (Stefan Arngrim) doesn't seem to have many friends but he does like a girl, Julie (Kathleen Rowe McAllen.) Julie doesn't know Andrew exists until he hands her a book she forgot in class, she has a vision of herself and Andrew entangled in a bed kissing and it's terrifying.

Now that Andrew is 18, he realizes that he's the embodiment of Lucifer. Andrew tries to dream rape Julie, it's pretty terrifying, but Julie manages to wake up.  Julie continues to get strange visions about Andrew and about an old woman.  She leaves her house, without telling her parents, and finds the old woman, Margaret. It turns out Margaret is the current embodiment of the angel Mikhail. Margaret believes that Julie is the embodiment of Gabrielle. Margaret tries to explain what they must kill Andrew but it's convoluted.

The church happens to be staging their annual version of the Passion play. Andrew decides that night is the right time for him to embrace his satanic powers. He ruins the play, starts killing people and raises some zombie dead. Margaret and Julie run around trying to find Andrew. Luckily the magic staff also stuns Andrew/Lucifer so he can't get away. They finally catch him and stab him with the staff, destroying him. They've won this round, until Lucifer is reborn again.

The tone of this movie is all over the place. It's trying to be a spooky religious horror movie but it's cut with high school scenes that feature then contemporary songs by the likes of the Boom Town Rats, The Ramones, Talking Heads, B-52's, Patti Smith and more! The music was fun, the tonal shifts were not.

There is a super crazy scene where all the high school guys are taking a shower, including Andrew. One of the dudes, Tony starts teasing Andrew, so Andrew kisses Tony, literally locking lips with him and forcing him to the ground. It's such a strange scene, they don't address how weird it is but  it does feature lots of male nudity.

I think there was supposed to be some chemistry between Julie and Andrew, so it would be harder for her to kill him but that never happened. Since they established the thin plot at the beginning, it was just a waiting game to have the same events happen all over again. It's a strange movie but it didn't leave me with many memorable scenes.