Poor, picked-upon Pvt. Coopersmith unleashes some serious satanic comeuppance on his classmates in Evilspeak, a computer-aided variation on Brian De Palma’s classic Carrie. Orphaned after his parents’ death in an auto accident, Coopersmith (Clint Howard, Ice Cream Man) is the opposite of Big Man on Campus at the military academy where he is so despised by his soccer teammates that the coach actually insinuates they take him out so they could have a chance at winning a game for once.

A loser for life, Coopersmith finds salvation in the form of a dusty tome full of black-magic rituals he seeks to conduct in the comfort of his own dormitory basement. With the help of a personal computer one notch above the power of a Radio Shack TRS-80, he summons the vengeful spirit of Estaban (Richard Moll, aka Bull from TV’s Night Court), not to mention demonic, man-eating pigs. Oink!

The directorial debut of Hyenas‘ Eric Weston, Evilspeak moves surprisingly slow for an exploitation film, but Howard keeps its head above water. His nervous, gosh-oh-golly-gee-whiz demeanor hardly makes for a note-perfect performance, but he’s so believable as the used-and-abused nerd that an introverted viewer really will feel for the guy — both the character and the actor. Evilspeak‘s cult following seems to be a case of overstatement — after all, better possession pictures exist from the VHS era — but we’ll chalk its popularity up to the relatability of the social outcast/underdog. —Rod Lott

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The bad news: At March College, two students have been murdered, including the first-string quarterback. The good news: At rival Lanier College, a fraternity guy realizes, “We might be able to take them this year” in football. The bad news: The killer then makes his way to Lanier.

The worst news: Final Exam is a failed attempt at cashing in on the slasher wake in the wake of Halloween and Friday the 13th. Because the similar campus chiller Graduation Day already claimed the calendar name, writer/director Jimmy Huston (My Best Friend Is a Vampire) goes with an event bursting with double entendre. The wit ends with that title.

Lanier is an institution of hair-helmeted young people, some of whose lives are cut short by the blade of a silent hulk (Timothy A. Raynor, putting in overtime as the film’s fight coordinator) with no apparent motive. To be consistent with that act of lazy storytelling, Huston gives his characters little semblance of characterization. Viewers will be unable to tell who the lead is, simply because none exists.

Although Final Exam may be the only slasher to depict an act of terrorism as a Greek-system prank, the movie redefines routine, standing at the head of the class only to be ridiculed as the worst of its kind. —Rod Lott

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Every two-bit tropical island needs a health center, right? Peace Corps good guy Jim Farrell (John Ashley, Beyond Atlantis) thinks so! Brides of Blood boats Jim o’er to ol’ Blood Island — name not official — with Dr. Henderson (Kent Taylor, The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues) and the doc’s young, hot wife (Beverly Powers, The Comedy of Terrors).

Dr. Henderson is going for another reason: The isle sits on the fringe of the range of atomic tests from the 1940s, causing some mutations. We’re talking land crabs, banana trees whose branches move like tentacles, shapeshifting butterflies, exploding flowers — you name it.

And then there’s the creature to whom topless natives are sacrificed. If you can imagine that Swamp Thing were created by Sid and Marty Krofft, but they couldn’t afford a movable mouth, you’ve got a good grasp on the where the needle points here: straight to the Bs! Fans of the stool-loose Blood Island series, of which the Philippines-lensed Bride is part one, wouldn’t have it any other way. —Rod Lott

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I’ve seen enough movies to know that if you receive a sizable sum from a bank account with the numbers “666,” Something Is Up. In The Legacy, an interior-design team gets such a deposit to the tune of $50,000 — an advance payment for a project whose particulars go undisclosed, beyond that a trip to England is required. Something Is Up.

After arriving in the UK, Margaret (Katharine Ross, The Graduate) and her partner/lover, Pete (Sam Elliott, Hulk), are involved in a motorcycle accident and taken to a remote countryside estate for a cup of tea and cleanup. The kind gesture threatens to turn into an eternity when Margaret and Pete find their every effort to leave the premises quashed, as if a conspiracy prevents an exit. Plus, a nun lives there. Something Is Up.

Worse, the other guests — The Who’s Roger Daltrey among them — start to die horrific deaths, and their host is some sort of bedridden demon with claw-like hands in need of a manicure and serious moisturizing. Something Is Up. While that may not be an individual viewer’s pulse, The Legacy nonetheless boasts several creative kill sequences, courtesy of director Richard Marquand (Return of the Jedi) and co-scripter Jimmy Sangster, who specialized in penning the type of Hammer Films product (i.e. Fear in the Night) this modern-day Gothic exercise emulates, more successfully than not.

Produced at the wane of the 1970s’ satanic-panic subgenre in horror (see: The Omen, The Sentinel, Race with the Devil and so on), The Legacy is good enough to deserve not being forgotten. One cannot say the same for the sore-thumb ballad serving as the film’s theme song, warbled with MOR saccharine by Kiki Dee. What Was Up? —Rod Lott

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With pipe as prop, cinema’s undisputed godfather of gore, Herschell Gordon Lewis, introduces the “lost film” of Doctor Gore in a five-minute prologue, overselling pal J.G. “Pat” Patterson Jr. as “the master of gore.” That’s not to say Mr. Patterson’s directorial debut doesn’t kick over buckets of blood; it just doesn’t carry that undefinable H.G. Lewis magic. Keeping consistent for the one and only time, Patterson oversells himself, too, by starring as the titular madman under the curious pseudonym of “America’s No. 1 Magician,” Don Brandon.

Lanky, balding, the doctor has discovered the secret to regenerating life — so complex, it entails wrapping a corpse head-to-toe in aluminum foil like human Jiffy Pop. Anxious to resurrect his dead wife piece by piece by piece, the would-be Frankenstein lures foxy women — at the beach, in a restaurant, what have you — so that he may kill them for parts. Aiding him is Greg (Roy Mehaffey), a grunting hunchback.

When Dr. Brandon acquires enough “ingredients,” we meet the lovely spouse, Anitra (Jenny Driggers). A (un)dead ringer for swimsuit model Kate Upton, she is just the way Brandon (Patterson?) likes ’em: big-titted and baby-stupid. He sees to that, in fact, hypnotizing her to wipe her brain into total subservience: “You will not even remember what a glass of water is.” With Anitra lounging in a bikini, her hubby re-teaches her everything, from the ABCs to the smell of vinegar. His curriculum seems a lot more trouble than it’s worth.

Equally not as thought-out is Patterson’s point-and-shoot direction, inert enough to make Lewis look like a Palme d’Or contender. Shots of a two-character conversation don’t match; one scene begins with the clapboard in clear view, as if Patterson simply didn’t care anymore. His alarming ineptitude is exactly what Doctor Gore, also known as The Body Shop, has going for it. —Rod Lott

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