Evilspeak (1981)

I spent most of my teen years either in the video store or the comic store. That means I didn’t waste my time or money on girls and instead had a sweet comic collection and saw just about every horror flick of the eighties. But there were so many of them hitting the shelves that over the years I’ve found that I missed quite a few. Evilspeak is one of those that until recently I’d never seen. Thanks to the guys over at Bloodbaths and Boomsticks I was inspired to rectify that situation.

Clint Howard plays Stanley Coopersmith, a charity case at a military academy. He is treated terribly by his fellow classmates and teachers. Really other than a kindly cook and one other student everyone else at his school sucks! When Stanley finds the hidden chambers of the priest that built the chapel at the school he realizes that the he was into black magic and left some goodies lying around. With aid of his handy desktop computer he is able to start translating and casting spells. Though he keeps missing the key ingredient, a blood sacrifice!

Stanley only has his time in the basement and the puppy that was given to him by the kindly cook to keep him sane. Sure enough though the bullies break into his sanctuary and in an act of utter cruelty kill his little dog. This pushes him over the edge and Stanley gets his blood sacrifice just in time to get his revenge on those who were mean to him. Which if you haven’t figured it out yet was pretty much everybody in sight. The ending to this movie in the chapel is absolutely bonkers!

Most of the time when I’ve missed a flick from the video store days there is a good reason for it. But Evilspeak is a great movie that I would have loved when I was younger. The cast is great with Clint Howard killing it in the lead role. He is just the right combination of weird and sad that makes you want to root for him. Plus, when they killed Frank, his little dog, I was ready for him to get demonic

Clint Howard is awesome!

on their asses! R.G. Armstrong is also perfectly creepy as Sarge, who I’m pretty sure was about to molest Stanley in the basement. The rest of the cast is asked to be one dimensional jerks, so we can root for them to get their comeuppance in the finale. They do a great job in the limited roles they are given. Finally, I have to talk about Richard Moll. He is barely in the movie and plays the devil loving priest Esteban. It is his books that give Coopersmith the power to do the bad things. While small it was a great role for him.

The gore in Evilspeak is plentiful. We get a couple heads getting lopped off, another is split in half, some bodies being burned to a crisp, a head gets twisted around, some guts getting munched, and the best use of Hogs as killers in a horror movie! Not all of the kills are stellar, but I love the quantity and the fact that everything is practical. There isn’t any gore quite as good as old school gore and Evilspeak has plenty of that. This is a great slice of eighties fun that I highly recommend.

© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer