976-EVIL (1988)

This is another flick that I first heard about in the Horror Movie Survival Guide, this time being profiled in the occult section. It sounded like an interesting premise: a hotline that has satanic connections. I was also really surprised to see that this film was actually directed by Robert Englund. I figured, "This might be interesting." I saw it for the first time just last year and, I got to say, I wasn't that impressed. You may notice that I didn't put this as an entry of Movies That Suck. It's not horrible, don't get me wrong, but it's not great or very remarkable. It's just sort of... average.

Hoax is a geeky teenager who lives with his overzealous religious mother who is slightly abusive towards him and won't allow him to do anything that she feels is even slightly blasphemous. He's also picked on by the local bullies and is awkward with girls. His only real friend is his rebel cousin Spike and even he is sort of annoyed by Hoax. One night, Spike comes across an ad for a "horrorscope" hotline called 976-EVIL in a magazine and tries it out a couple of times. However, when he doesn't do exactly what the message tells him to, he is almost killed for his breaking of the deal. Hoax, meanwhile, comes across the ad too and also tries out the hotline. The more he uses it, the more it starts to influence him, eventually turning him to a clawed demon who takes revenge on all those who have hurt him and opens up a hole to hell in his own house. Now, it's up to Spike and a private detective investigating the hotline to stop Hoax.

By this point, Robert Englund was the new big horror star. He'd become a household name by playing Freddy Krueger in the first three Nightmare on Elm Street films and the year that 976-EVIL was released (at least in the UK) was also when A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, the highest grossing film of the series, was released, putting Englund's popularity at an all time high. However, his directing career never took off after this. The only other things he's directed since this were a couple of episodes of Freddy's Nightmares and a little known horror comedy in 2008 called Killer Pad. In fact, 976-EVIL wasn't released in the U.S. until March of 1989 and it was forgotten rather quickly. I'm actually not surprised by either that or Englund's directing career being virtually non-existent because, while I like Englund as an actor, he's not very impressive as a director. He's competent enough and knows where to put the camera and whatnot but he failed to make 976-EVIL distinctive from the majority of horror films that came out in the 80's.

The cast of the movie didn't exactly thrill me either. Stephen Geoffreys who played Evil Ed in Fright Night plays the main character Hoax and does a fair job. His performance is much more understated than when he played Evil Ed. He's a typical nerd with his plaid shirt and pants, geeky hairdo, and an effeminate voice (which I thought was a put-on for Evil Ed but apparently that's just how Geoffreys really talks). He's kind of a male version of Carrie White since he has to put up with crazily religious mother as well as cruel bullies. He's also really awkward when it comes to women and just a tiny bit of perv, spying on Spike when he's having sex with his girlfriend and later sneaking into his house and taking the panties she left behind (even sniffing them). You get the sense that he doesn't mean any harm by it, though. And, of course, since he's constantly picked on by so many people, he easily succumbs to the power of the hotline and decides to use it to get even with everybody. Like I said, Geoffreys does a fair job but here's the thing: I've this type of revenge of the nerd story so many times in both horror movies and other genres and I've seen it done better than this. Also, when Hoax finally becomes completely possessed by the evil and turns into a demon, he's not really all that impressive. He just becomes a typical supernatural slasher and does have any good one-liners or jokes to say while he's stalking and killing people. I kind of expected him to become hyper-kinetic like he was as Evil Ed but he comes across as trying to be menacing with a tiny touch of exuberance, like a very toned down Freddy Krueger. Maybe it's just my own personal expectations but I was expecting this nerd to really let the beast out when he changed. Again, not a bad performance from Geoffreys but just nothing special.

Patrick O'Bryan is not that impressive as Hoax's cousin Spike. He's the stereotypical rebellious teen with his leather jacket, motorcycle, and tough attitude. He doesn't hate Hoax and he does look save him from the bullies at one point but he's also annoyed by him. He also doesn't get along with his aunt since she so's crazy with religion and sees him as a sinner. There really isn't that much to say about Spike. O'Bryan's performance is really bland without much emotion. When he starts seeing what's happening to Hoax, he has the same blank expression and monotone voice and doesn't appear to really care about him. When he confronts the completely possessed Hoax at the end of the movie, he tries to get through to him by reminding him of this motorcycle trip across America that they were supposed to take but I didn't buy that either because there's not much emotion in his voice. I didn't find him that tough either. He does beat up the aforementioned bullies and kind of push Hoax around when he finds out what Hoax did to his girl but during the finale, his voice and actions don't come across as bad-ass to me. The only noteworthy part of his performance is that he resists the hotline's temptations and puts back some leather bike gloves that he almost steals when it tells him to. Other than that, he didn't do it for me.

Sandy Dennis, best known for winning an Oscar for her role in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, plays Lucy, Hoax's overzealous mother. She does okay in her part as this stereotypical type of character who won't let her son do anything, hates Spike because she thinks he's a sinner and a bad influence on Hoax, and is always watching evangelists on TV (she also has a bunch of wigs and changes them constantly). Only problem with her role is that once you've seen Piper Laurie's over the top performance as the same type of character in Carrie, nothing else compares to it and Dennis' performance is no exception. It is a bit over the top and hateful and she does kind of abuse Hoax but not as much as Ms. White did to Carrie. She comes across as just more annoying than loathsome. Besides, her death at the hands of her son isn't that spectacular either. Not bad, just a rather run-of-the-mill character and performance.

The rest of the cast is pretty forgettable. Lezlie Deane (who would later go on to be in the absolute worst Nightmare on Elm Street movie, Freddy's Dead, as well as have one of the creepiest, most awkward interviews I've ever seen in the Never Sleep Again documentary on the series), is not too bad as Spike's girlfriend Suzie but she really doesn't have much to do in the short amount of screen-time she has. She's a tough biker girl who likes Spike (she has sex with him, even though Hoax proves to be a cockblocker and messes it up) but when he becomes more interested in winning back the money he lost at poker rather than take her to a movie, she dumps him and spends some time with Hoax. She does grow to like Hoax despite his geeky persona but that's ruined when the bullies spoil the date and reveal that Hoax had Suzie's panties in his pocket the whole time. After that, she dumps him and he proceeds to try to scare her with a satanic ritual but ends up accidentally killing her. Deane doesn't do a bad job with what she has to work with but she's not that memorable of a character in the movie.

The blandest characters are private detective Marty (Jim Metzler) and Angela (Maria Rubell) who I think was the school principal but inexplicably becomes a romantic interest for Marty (after she lets her hair down and proves that she is hot despite the hairdo she first shows up with). Like everyone else, the actors do their jobs fairly well but they don't have much to work with. Marty just comes out of nowhere and we never find out why he's investigating the hotline other than he's looking for a John Doe (I think). And, like I said, Angela inexplicably gets close to Marty starts helping him with the investigation. There is literally no lead up to that at all. Angela doesn't do much except become Hoax's hostage at the end of the film. Robert Picardo has a tiny role as Mark Dark, the creator of the hotline who claims to have shut it off but you find out was behind it the entire time. Nice to see the guy but, like everyone else, he has little to do. Finally, the bullies are just generic thugs who pick on Hoax for no reason other than he's a nerd. When you look at all these blank slates of characters, it really feels like the writers (Brian Helgeland and Rhet Topham) didn't have that much intention to flesh them out and went through the motions.

I know I criticized Englund's direction as being bland earlier but it's the truth. He doesn't do anything to make this movie look distinct from the crowd of all the low budget horror flicks that came out of the 80's. There are some interesting lighting choices here and there but for the most, it just looks as generic as you can get. There is one interesting bit of camerawork in a scene where Hoax kills one of the bullies in a restroom. It's a shot from above and as Hoax attacks the bully, the camera pans over the tops of the stalls until it comes to one toilet in particular and when Hoax flushes the toilet where he killed the bully, that particular toilet overflows with blood. That was the one interesting visual bit of the movie. As for the art direction, even though the movie is set in the year it was made, I think Englund may have been going for a slight 50's vibe with the leather jackets, the way certain parts of the school look, and especially the inside of the town's diner. But, in the end, it just comes across as dated. Even the way the set looks when hell comes up into Hoax's is house is that impressive. There's a lot of snow (so Hoax can say "hell just froze over") and rifts in the ground that open to reveal flames but it's just not that spectacular (you can tell that they had a low budget and it really works against them). I'm sorry if I sound overly critical but I just can't get over how bland the movie is in all respects.

The makeup effects by Kevin Yagher's group falls into place with everything else: it's not bad but it's just kind of there. Hoax's gradual change from teenager to demon isn't that impressive. The clawed hands and feet that he grows are clearly rubber and the final demonic face that he acquires just doesn't do anything for me. It's not that impressive. There also isn't a lot of gore in the movie and what little there is also isn't much to write home about. Hands getting cut off, throats and faces getting slashed, still pumping hearts that have been removed, electrocutions, sliced by glass, etc. It's standard is all it is.

One would hope that the film's music score would at least be distinctive, after all, as I've said before, music can sometimes make or break a movie for me. But nope, the music is as forgettable as everything else (the fact that two composers, Thomas Chase and Steve Rucker, did it is an even worse sign). I honestly don't remember a single tune from this entire movie. Like the movie, it's not distinctive from a lot of typical music scores to horror movies around that time.

At the end of the day, 976-EVIL is just nothing special. It's unimpressive, bland, dated, with ho-hum performances, makeup effects, visual style, and music. I think it's obvious why Robert Englund hasn't directed much because, while not horrible, he's just not that impressive. Interestingly, the film did get a sequel in 1992 that was directed by schlock-meister Jim Wynorski but that movie only got a theatrical release in the UK and went direct to video everywhere else. It doesn't matter because the original has been forgotten by all but the most die-hard horror fans. If you're one of its fans, power to you but to me, there are many, many better horror films made in the 1980's. This one just doesn't stand out amongst the crowd.