Making its Blu-Ray debut, this is one of Wes Craven’s lesser known horrors, an early 80s slasher starring an inexperienced Sharon Stone. I wish I could say it’s a forgotten gem but it’s fairly forgettable stuff and even Craven himself can’t seem to work up much enthusiasm for the film in the interview included in the extra features, explaining that the film suffered from studio intervention. This point in his career saw him edging away from the exploitation shockers such as The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, with which he made his name, and moving into the restrained mainstream. Although Deadly Blessing still feels typically trashy for a Craven horror, it also feels neutered and dull.
Deadly Blessing is the strange tale of a sinister religious sect terrorizing a young widow and her friends. Despite the fact that the story takes place in Amish country and the cult look and live like Amish people, the script goes to great pains to explain that they are in fact Hittites; an extremist movement that “make the Amish look like swingers. Presumably this was to avoid offending the Amish, although I’m not sure how they would have seen the film. The sect’s maniacal leader is played by Ernest Borgnine, who takes it all very seriously but still somehow seems too familiar and friendly to be scary.
Usually the least you can expect from a Craven flick is some over-the-top gore but unfortunately with Deadly Blessing, whether by conscious effort to be subtle or studio pressure, he held back with the red stuff. The first murder in the film is performed via tractor but still manages to be uninteresting. Seriously, it’s a boring tractor murder; how is that even possible? To be fair, Craven does seem to be aiming for some classy Hitchcockian suspense rather than his usual nasty shocks, but although he manages some fairly tense scenes (the most notable involving a snake in a bath) the film feels like it’s trying to be something it’s not.
Without giving too much away, the film ends on a hugely audacious, Carrie-style supernatural shock. While in his interview in the extras screenwriter Glenn M. Benest laments this scene that he feels ruins the realistic tone he was striving for, it’s exactly the kind of rip-roaring lunacy that Deadly Blessing needed more of. As it is, it’s neither good enough to be truly frightening or bad enough to be campy fun.
Overall Verdict: It’s neither good nor bad enough to be really memorable and this overlooked Wes Craven slasher is best left overlooked.
Special Features:
Audio Commentary with Wes Craven
Introduction by actor Michael Berryman
The Deadliest Director: An Interview with Wes Craven
The Horror Hits of Michael Berryman: An interview with Deadly Blessing’s iconic star
Deadly Desires: An interview with screenwriter Glenn M. Benest
Easter Eggs
Reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Gary Pullin
Collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by author and critic Kim Newman
Reviewer: Adam Pidgeon