Woodyanders Review of Prime Evil

Prime Evil (1988)

A hilariously horrendous late 80's satanic horror schlockfest

[8/10 · 22 March 2009]

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.