Deadly Blessing (1981)

Deadly Blessing

Release Date: 1981

Rating: * * 1/2

By John Engell August 29, 2012

Three years before Wes Craven would become a household name in horror with “A Nightmare On Elm Street,” he directed 1981’s little known “Deadly Blessing.” It is arguably the most atypical genre film in Craven’s cannon. The film features an early performance from Academy Award nominee Sharon Stone, and a score from future Titanic composer and Oscar winner James Horner.     

“Deadly Blessing” takes place in rural Pennsylvania farm country where a suspicious Amish-like sect known as the Hittites make their home. The late Ernest Borgnine stars as Isaiah, the leader of the group, whose son Jim decides to leave the tight-knit community to pursue a college education. When Jim returns to the family’s farmland with a wife, and a new perspective on life in which he embraces modern conveniences, he is exiled from the commune. The Hittites call his land the “forbidden place” and warn its youth from venturing onto it. On the night of the couple’s one year anniversary, a shadowy figure appears on the outsider’s property and murders Jim, crushing him with his own tractor.
    
His pregnant widow Martha is ostracized by the locals who call her a messenger of the Incubus. Despite warnings from police to leave town for her own safety, Martha refuses to be driven out.
    
Relations between Isaiah and his estranged daughter-in-law are further strained when one of the Hittites, a man-child played by the “Hill Have Eyes” alum Michael Berryman, is found dead on Martha’s property.
    
After Martha’s two best friends come to stay with her, the trio is terrorized by an unknown assailant, which viewers are led to assume is a member of the Hittite clan intent to purge the land of the evil they believe is incarnated there.
    
“Deadly Blessing” features several creepy and disquieting sequences involving a large spider, first in the barn and later when an arachnid descends from the ceiling into the open mouth of one of the unsuspecting girls as she lies restlessly in bed. There is also a gross-out snake in the bathtub scene reminiscent of Nancy’s scary soak in “Nightmare.”
    
The ending is a bit surreal and without revealing too much it involves a hermaphrodite, an overprotective mother and the devil himself. But don’t let that scare you away from tracking down a copy of one of Wes Craven’s most obscure efforts. “Deadly Blessing” may not be everyone’s glass of farm fresh milk, but it was unique enough to maintain my interest for 100 minutes.
    
Presently there is no region 1 issue of “Deadly Blessing” (I watched a dark, and grainy full-screen dub which just started to stream on Netflix), but the upstart Scream Factory label plans to remedy that this fall with a proper release of the film here in the States.