07 December 2024
Fear No Evil (1981)
99 min.
Directed by Frank LaLoggia.
With Stefan Arngrim, Elizabeth Hoffman, Kathleen Rowe McAllen, Frank Birney, Daniel Eden, Jack Holland.
Overly pretentious arthouse horror isn't as good as it thinks it is.

Teenage high school student Andrew Williams (Arngrim) is shy, introverted, gets good grades...and is the Anti-Christ out to rule the Earth. (Aren't they all?)

Proving how heartlessly cruel he can be, Andrew even paralyzes his own mother, disabling her physically.

Heavenly angel McAllen (no really, she's *really* an archangel) hopes to thwart the evil Andrew. But will Andrew open the flood gates of Hell before she has a chance to stop him?

Insert loads of important symbolism and portentious dialogue here.

For every good scene in Fear No Evil (and there are one or two, including Andrew's metamorphosis into a devil), there's two bad scenes full of stilted dialogue, pendulous acting and turgid pacing.

It's a valiant effort from first time director LaLoggia (he would go on to direct Lady in White in 1988), but unfortunately it doesn't all gel the way it should.

What *we* really want in our Anti-Christ is a small, dark-haired, quiet, fairly normal-looking kid with strange, brooding eyes...

Also known as Lucifer.

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