User Reviews

Evil monks search New York City in the late 1980's for virgin sacrifices. Muddled movie by Roberta Findlay appears to have been shot about the same time as her film Lurkers since it has many of the same locations and much of the same casts. From the stand point of having some scenes of old New York this is good, but from any other stand point this really isn't worth your time. The problem is that the film's script isn't all that good. Its a stitched together affair with plot points from other films dropped in. The result is a kind of boredom that comes from a film that seems to have been made more for the money then it was for the love or need to make it. More dull then anything else it never generates enough interest to create any real scares because you really don't care. Watchable in a bad movie sort of way, its the sort of thing that is best seen only when going through a multiple film set since its not worth the time or the effort to see a film like this as a stand alone.

This is surprisingly Bearable ,it has a somewhat interesting story, and a cool ending, However, most of the acting is terrible, and i only rooted for 1 character. The Main villain is decent, and was somewhat menacing, however it's a little too cheap at times, and some of the dialog, bored me,however for the most part it was a OKAY watch, with a strong main lead. The Direction is so so, okay for the low budget. Roberta Findlay, does an okay job here, keeping the film interesting throughout, however the camera work is extremely shaky at times,still an okay job. There is a tiny bit of gore. We get 2 bloody stabbings,decapitation and a bloody fall victim. The Acting is terrible for the most part. Christine Moore, is excellent here, and the only good actor/actress in this movie, she is very likable, gorgeous, and gave an excellent performance. William Beckwith,gives an over the top performance here, and was fun to watch, but a good actor he is not. Overall, worth 1 watch i suppose, but don't expect, a good movie by any means ** out of 5(barely)

Prime Evil is a slick, well produced, but ultimately barren horror movie that has elements of the slasher movie within it, mostly the prosthetics belonging to one Ed French, but is mostly a tepid devil worship film with terrible pacing and underwhelming drama.

Sexploitation film legend Roberta Findlay has stated numerous times that she is no fan of the horror genre and that indeed shows in Prime Evil. There is too much emphasis here on the film looking respectable and not enough on the film being marketable. Unsurprising from Findlay, the nudity it at least adequate, but the gore is severely lacking. What Ed French does give us, including a severed head, is fantastic, but there is way too little of it.

Characters in Prime Evil seem to be the driving force of the narrative, but none of them really have any dimension to them. They have quirks, there i say even colour, but none of them were interesting enough to justify focusing the entire movie upon them. What should have been the focus really is a more engaging plot instead of the predictable fluff that we have here.

In conclusion, Prime Evil is a meandering late 80's exploitation film that has very little to offer apart from some New York sights and sounds from the time as well, some entertaining, if rationed, gore and nudity. Everything else is just merely stuffy drama that cannot hold anyone's attention for long and that's very surprising, because Roberta Findlay has worked on films that have been very rich in plot. In the pursuit of obtaining legitimacy in her field, she instead alienates everyone around her by punching above her weight and failing to keep up with the times. Now where have I heard that before? Except with Findlay, she did keep up with the times, but that's another video, and hopefully as well, a new re-release.

A nasty sect of evil monks led by the sinister Father Thomas Seaton (dreadfully overplayed with shameless eye-rolling hammy brio by William Beckwith) sacrifice virgins every thirteen years in order to appease Lucifer and remain immortal for perpetuity. The sect plans on carving up sweet, but repressed goody-goody two shoes social worker Alexandra Parkman (the singularly woeful Christine Moore) on the altar. Brave nun Sister Angela (a hopelessly dire performance by Mavis Harris) infiltrates the cult so she can put a stop to these foul heathens once and for all. Misdirected with alarming ineptitude by Roberta Findley (who also did the surprisingly passable cinematography), with a hackneyed script by Ed Kelleher and Hariette Vidal (for example, the devil worshipers are your standard bunch of creepy folks in black hoods and robes chanting wicked incantations), a poky pace, a generic ooga-booga shivery and ominous score by Walter E. Sear, clunky dialogue ("He's not breathing; he wouldn't talk to me. My guess is he's dead"), a few clumsily staged fight scenes, a generous sprinkling of tasty gratuitous female nudity, and a last reel appearance by a laughably hokey rubbery puppet Satan, this admittedly lousy, yet still oddly entertaining tripe certainly possesses the right wrong stuff to rate as an amusingly awful clunker. The lame no-name cast all fail to impress with their uniformly atrocious acting, with top thespic dishonors going to Max Jacobs as Alexandra's scheming, diabolical grandfather George Parkman, the ever-foxy Ruth Collins as reformed junkie Cathy, Tim Gail as Alexandra's stolid assistant college professor fiancé Bill King, George Krause as hulking psycho lackey Ben, Amy Brentano as Alexandra's ditsy gal pal Brett, Jeanne Marie as bitter foul-mouthed teenage hooker Judy, and Gary Warner as drippy Detective Dann Carr. Ed French provides some nifty gore and gnarly make-up f/x. A deliciously cruddy Grade Z hoot.

There is a group of Satanist that live in the city. Satan grants them wealth and youth for sacrificing a blood relative, of which there has been a lot of as late and always young attractive women. The film centers around Alexandra Parkman (Christine Moore) who is connected to all the missing people and victims. The dialog is corny and at times amusingly sexual. It is from the 80's and I love their hair style.

Not a great film as the plot lacks complexity.

Sex and nudity (Amy Brentano from "Breeders"; Ruth Collins from "Psychos in Love"; Jeanne Marie of "Young Nurses in Love"; and Miriam Zucker of "Alien Space Avenger")

It took me several sittings, but I finally managed to finish "Prime Evil". Since I am a red-blooded, All American straight male, you wouldn't think that a movie that features so many gratuitous boobies would be that hard to get through, but, well, it was. Boobies can only get a viewer so far.

It's pretty obvious that the acres of flesh on display here (and the kidnapping, subjugation and ritual murder of women)are the main point of the film, and I don't have a problem with that. (With a title like "Prime Evil", the movie can't be said to be proceeding under false pretenses, can it?) But the movie, it tasks me.

It tasks me because the chief bad guy has just one expression and just one bit of stage business with his index finger on his lips for the entire movie, and the director lets him get away with it. It tasks me because the cast members are photogenic, but also brittle and wooden and bad at a level worse than most television day time soap operas. It tasks me because the screenplay cheats like a bastard and skips over even the basic demands of common sense. It tasks me because an "undercover nun" is able to stab the Devil to death, and the special FX for the Devil is a barbecued goat mannequin with bat-wings that looks as if someone didn't leave it on the rotisserie long enough.

And it tasks me because the chief Satanist makes his escape gesticulating as if he were Snidely Whiplash.It tasks me because the police detectives who "crack" the case at the last minute do so in a scene staged by someone who never saw the inside of police station in their lives, and who have no idea what kind of handguns they carry on duty.(And no, you can't claim that this is a "parody" when the rest of the movie is played absolutely straight.)

And that's just the first few things that came to mind, and I only have 1000 words or so,and I don't want to bore the casual reader as badly as this movie bored and irritated me.

One extra star for all the boobies. Minus several stars for being a bad version of a soft core porn film without having a soft-core porn's entertainment value.

In present day New York, immortal Catholic monks from the 14th century, led by one Father Seaton, make human sacrifices to Satan (who resembles a side of beef covered in barbecue sauce with a goat skull on top). A determined (if lisping) nun, Sister Angela, infiltrates the sect, hoping to end their murderous reign. She eventually does so by killing Satan. How does our intrepid nun pull off what no one else has ever been able to do? By cutting him with a shard of broken glass. I kind of thought defeating the Prince of Darkness would take a lot more effort, but I guess not. Too bad Father Merrin from "The Exorcist" didn't know about the broken-glass thing; he might not have died.

Other characters include a creepy, sadistic janitor who, um, "recruits" shapely young women into the cult. Then there's Alex, a social worker whose father forced her to do child porn when she was six years old. Also appearing in the film: lots and lots of boobs. If you like boobs, this film has 'em. And I'm not referring to the cast members.

The storyline takes big-time leaps in logic. For example, the cult is responsible for several recent killings and disappearances. Investigating them is one Detective Carr. Near the end of the film, it finally occurs to him that each victim had a connection to Alex. This leads the detective to conclude not that he must now consider Alex a suspect, but rather that because it's Winter Solstice and she's a virgin, a Satanic cult is going to sacrifice her at midnight. It's the right conclusion, but how in the hell did he reach it? Talk about sloppy scriptwriting.

Item: Father Seaton speaks in a flat baritone and rarely changes facial expressions. I can see why the women find him irresistible.

Item: Early in the film, Father Seaton tells a cultist, "Remember, you get extra points if she's a virgin." Never knew Satan had a point system. Maybe it involves a card you get punched when you sacrifice a virgin?

Item: Alex has a fiancé, Bill, who she won't let him make love to her. Understandable as she suffers from PTSD from her child-porn days. However, it never occurs to Alex to seek professional help, nor does it occur to Bill that he might not want to marry a woman who is frightened of the sex act.

Item: When Alex can't contact a client, she calls Detective Carr, who tells her, "We've put out an APB. She is officially missing." I thought police couldn't declare a person "missing" until 72 hours had gone by?

Item: Carr hauls in a young prostitute, who he calls "underage." I didn't realize the age of majority in New York was 35.

Item: Carr's gun looks like something an Old West sheriff might have carried. I know the cultists are centuries old, but should a cop's firearm be?

Item: When Sister Angela defeats Satan, the cultists all die of rapid aging. But not Father Seaton, who escapes the scene, even though two police detectives are upstairs. The film gives no reason for Seaton's lack of aging. I assume it was done for the possibility of a sequel. Again, sloppy scriptwriting.

I will sit through anything with demonic rituals, so I sat through this. On checking web reviews, I have become convinced there are two different versions. "CryFi" from Lansingburgh says in his review here on IMDb "surprisingly, there's no nudity." There was also no nudity in the DVD (Rhino) that I saw (there is also very little blood and almost no horror). However, over on cndb, reviewers are talking about how glad they are that there is nudity in the movie and judging the different actresses' "racks". Mr. Skin gives it three stars (!!!) for "great nudity" and lists four actresses as being nude during the flick. Does anyone know what is the situation with this film. It's hard to believe Roberta Findlay would make a movie without nudity, but there was not an inch of skin on the Rhino DVD, though there were scenes where I would have expected skin. Anyone know what's up?