976-Evil (1988)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Written by Brian Helgeland and Rhet Topham
Directed by Robert Englund
Starring Stephen Geoffreys, Jim Metzler, Maria Rubell, Lezlie Deane, Pat O’Bryan, and Sandy Dennis

Features:

• Trailers
  

Rating: R

Anamorphic: Nope

My Advice: Skip it.

Those of us who love B-movies don’t love them, for the most part, because of their finely crafted plots, their stunning or beautiful special effects, or for acting that would make James Earl Jones weep with shame. No. We love them because they’re campy, silly, and, mass murderers notwithstanding, innocent good fun. Part of the Satanism paranoia that swept the USA during the 1980s, 976-Evil is, sadly, one of the many exceptions.

The plot is an eternal story: boy finds card containing a Satanic phone number, boy meets girl, boy’s cousin finds number and uses it to kill girl and lots of other folks, boy’s cousin then turns into hellspawn, and boy must save the day. Simple, right? Toss in a creepy phone voice or two, some gratuitous blood, and some rather suspicious high-school bullies, and you’ll see how very fun the movie can be. No, it isn’t particularly scary or even very startling, but it is rather gross in spots—-but nothing to lose your lunch over. In short, 976-Evil, as horror movie, fails to be very horrific at all, in any sense of the word, save for film students, who would run shrieking into the night.

The actors do their best with what they’re given. Especially Stephen Geoffreys, best known for his portrayal as Williams in Heaven Help Us and as Evil Ed in Fright Night. All too often, however, it’s painfully obvious that everybody's “acting,” or rather trying to do so. Geoffreys does a rather good job of making his character Hoax as creepy in the beginning as he is evil in the end, and even manages to make the audience feel vaguely sorry for him at the same time.

The audio and video are both plenty good enough. You’ll be able to make out the little screams coming from the hellhole, and really, what more can you ask? The video had very few problems, except a couple of scenes where the colors were a bit muddied, but that could have been a lighting issue during the original filming as much as the digital transfer.

The extras are a bit thin. We’re given nothing more than a couple of trailers for other films. A commentary from director Englund would have been great, as would a special effects featurette or perhaps filmographies for the major players. Nothing else distinguishes the disc.

Let’s face it—-if you want to watch this, then you probably aren’t hoping for a deep intellectual exercise or even finely crafted special effects a la the Henson workshop. This is good, because you won’t get them. What you will get is a mildly entertaining B-grade horror flick, fun for a Halloween party or if you just happen to have a secret passion for slasher flicks of the demonic flavor. If you want a harmless horror movie that won’t give anyone nightmares or propose any deep questions, then this one might be perfect. If, on the other hand, you like your scary movies to be, well, scary, or if you think there’s no reason a horror movie can’t be well-made or well-shot, then you’re better off skipping 976-Evil and looking instead for The Company of Wolves or In the Mouth of Madness.