Alexandra Parkman (Christine Moore) is carrying around quite a bit of bad baggage, thanks to her creepy abusive dad. He’s gone, now, and she’s a grown woman, but she can’t stomach the idea of being touched, which makes things difficult for her fiancé Bill King (Tim Gail). She’s the head of a shelter for abused women and sex workers, doing her best to find them a new lease on life. For example, Cathy Birnham (Ruth Collins) has a college degree but got hooked into hooking; thanks to Alex, she’s cleaned up, stronger, and got an interview for a paralegal position. Alex’s best friend and workout buddy at the local gym is the junk food munching Brett Schaffer (Amy Brentano). When her benevolent grandfather George Parkman (Max Jacobs) invites her and her mother Frances (Cameron Kell) to a party, she’s eager to go despite Mom’s assertion that the Parkmans are all evil sonsofbitches. But that can’t be true with all the priests who show up, like Father Thomas Seaton (William Beckwith) who has the most gorgeous eyes …
Well, things are not what they seem. Alex’s mom is right, the Parkmans are aligned with an evil group of infernalists who trade the lives of blood relations for 13 years of power, prosperity, and youth. Seaton is the head honcho, grampa George wants to usurp his rule, and Alex is to be George’s next offering to the dark one. However, thanks to dying Father Daniel (Hershey Snyder), the local church has become aware of the cult’s machinations and have invited one of their number to infiltrate their ranks. Sister Angela Spencer (Mavis Harris) has a bad history that echoes elements of this cult’s activities, and she’s got an ax to grind against evildoers. But can she break her gentle, kindly ways to convince the group that she’s one of them? Can Alex, her fiancé, or a couple of cops (Gary Warner and T.J. Glenn) manages to break Seaton’s terrible spell before the ritual on Winter Solstice is performed? Roberta Finlay helms and does cinematography on a low budget Satanic Panic picture from the big, bad 1980s in the religious horror flick, Prime Evil (1988).
It’s hard not to appreciate a flick that has its title credits interrupted by the face and claws of Satan himself. Only to reveal he’s a cheap looking puppet, a poor man’s Muppet with grinning face and stiff claw arms. Then, cutting to the fourteenth century for a scene in which the doubting Thomas monk Seaton pledges his soul to the Devil by attacking his fellow monks. There’s a fun decapitation gag, which does away the need to jet blood from the stump. There’s even a “Join us or die,” threat before we ultimately crash into modern day New England … which looks an awful lot like New York.
This is low budget land, of course. The flick was made for less than $100k, and it certainly looks like a cheapie. There are some blood effects but nothing elaborate. There is some nudity, which is surprisingly well lit (showing Roberta Findlay’s history with adult films). There are some fight scenes that are … competent.
Where the film surprises is in the elements it mashes together. There’s a cult/religious horror angle of course, so that means spooky people in dark capes chanting Satan’s name while performing lengthy rituals … well, except one welcoming ritual which solely involves a fallen nun smashing a plaster image of Christ with a hammer, followed by the cultists embracing her: “Welcome, sister!” There’s also a slasher storyline, in which dimwitted handyman Ben (George Krause) does the cult’s bidding, murdering people with knives and hammers while supposedly making them look like accidents. The handyman’s routine is not all heavy breathing, mom issues, and killing, however; he’s also responsible for “recruiting” women to the cause with needles of some kind of Instantaneous Knockout Drug™ which then allows Seaton to hypnotize them … or not, in one delightful case.
In an interview on the Vinegar Syndrome release of Shriek of the Mutilated (1974), Roberta Findlay copped to the fact that she has no like for cheap horror movies. She doesn’t like watching them. She got into the biz thanks to a director of the stuff, after working with him, she did photography and direction for a couple dozen adult flicks, and then turned back to low budget horror in the 1980s when the market was there. A movie like Prime Evil stands out against the craze of slasher stuff and other flicks of the time because it’s not quite like any of those things. Same low budget and thrills (this is a blood and boobs flick), but it also slyly undercuts some of the expectations and cliches fostered by its contemporaries.
Of course, there are still plenty of WTF moments, the sorts of things that arise from the oddities of shooting and editing a picture.
One of the strengths of this picture is that there are a lot of female characters with a lot of different jobs, aspirations, and personality quirks. These aren’t all coeds (with one house mother), these aren’t campers and soon to be slasher victims, these are a variety of people with plenty of problems who are trying to better themselves and maybe help their communities. There are also some black hearted satanic cult members who are not above using their less enlightened women as offerings. It’s a smorgasbord of female characters, strongly written but not necessarily urban fantasy protagonist strong characters. And yet the film never once succeeds at passing the spirit of the Bechdel test. Sure, named characters talk about job opportunities, future plans, bad history, and whatnot, but the conversation always, always includes at least one tangent about men. It’s kind of frustrating.
On the plus side: there are no scenes of physical rape or sexual abuse, which were otherwise prevalent in the low budget horror field of the time. Many of the characters have backgrounds with abuse, and the handyman character certainly seems like the sort who’s eager to indulge his desires, consent be damned. However, we don’t get that stuff here. It’s kind of refreshing to see such a sexually motivated horror (even the blood spurts in the sacrifices looks kind of orgasmic) that doesn’t feel the need to titillate with sexual abuse. There’s an orgy during the course of the winter solstice that is surprisingly consensual.
Instead, it indulges in psychological abuse and some physical abuse. And yet, the budget doesn’t seem to allow for much in the way of gory effects. There’s a showstopper piece during the finale, which is where all the budget money went that has some cool practical effects, but mostly we get a bit of blood at this knife wound, or a rubber head rolling across the floor in that fourteenth century monastery. However, Seaton is a mind fucker. He’s got those eyes and the power to bedevil minds, which he puts to good use. He’s a mesmerist of evil (and I have vague recollections of a variation on his face appearing on a 1980s horror paperback about … wait for it … an evil mesmerist who might also masquerade as a priest), and it’s rather disturbing to see how easily he breaks through the wills of his victims.
Beckwith has the scenery chewing role of the big bad guy, the head of the cult, and the hunky man with the hypnotic eyes. You’ve got to appreciate Beckwith’s ability with the cornier dialogue. He can fairly hiss a line like, “You’ve won … THIS TIME!” without breaking character or cracking a grin. He has a couple of doozies, particularly when insulting the handyman/murderer character, which had me laughing like crazy.
He’s probably the best actor of the lot.
However, the best facial expressions belong to George Krause, whose dim character Ben is mostly a slack-jawed mouth breathing moron character who sometimes gets his rocks off through violence. He’s the beefy muscle to Seaton’s mind. Krause plays the role with a fairly good sense of physical presence, and he invests some of the actions with unsettling grins and childish glee.
I kind of love Amy Brentano’s commitment to the bestie. She doesn’t have the most convincing acting style, and yet gets some of the most memorable lines in the movie (“Don’t you want to get poked?”). Her character shows up as necessary either to support Moore’s Alexandra or as a character in jeopardy, but she’s playing the fun, oversexed character who obsesses over her cellulite and yet stuffs her face with junk food product placement.
Likewise, I have a fondness for Mavis Harris’ approach to the nun who volunteers to infiltrate the evil sect. We might expect the script to use this as an opportunity to actually challenge her character’s beliefs, but nope. She’s a gentle soul true believer at the start, and a warrior for Christ true believer at the end. It’s an arc, I guess, but she’s got a weird kind of charm. It was a nice touch to close her eyes when breaking the plaster cross, she really looks concerned about the blasphemy.
Fans of Edward Lee’s quirky hardcore horror fiction or Brian McNaughton’s erotic horror novels from the 1970s will find plenty to love in this one. It’s not as hardcore as those books, but it’s got that same balance of creepy horror and sleazy sex.
Prime Evil is a wonky slice of WTF cinema, with quirky editing and heaps of personality. Sure, it’s a low budget cheapie horror movie, but it’s also as weirdly fascinating as the eyes of its chief antagonist, a train wreck of a movie that is all but impossible to look away from. There’s sleazy horror, which throws nudity around on the screen, and then there’s this which feels oddly restrained and yet nevertheless seeping sleaze. What a weird, entertaining flick. The cult’s effects heavy final fate is worth the price of admission, and folks looking for the stupidest yet most charming devil puppet ever made will appreciate the gloriously cheap Satan on display here.
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Prime Evil was once available in a DVD/Blu-ray combo edition from the fine folks at Vinegar Syndrome, which is sadly out of print. As well, it has seen DVD, VHS, and a VOD edition.
Writing for “1 Blood Sacrifice = 13 Years of Power: Prime Evil (1988)” is copyright © 2022 by Daniel R. Robichaud.
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