Evilspeak (1981)

88 Films slowly crawl out of their self-caused limbo with the so far definitive release of this vital video nasty.

Although really only an expanded version of 2014’s A-locked US disc from Scream Factory, if the rest of 88 Films’ upcoming slate exhibits the same care and attention as their EVILSPEAK Blu-ray, they might finally claw their way back from the half-arsed limbo they’ve of late been slumped in. Indeed, the Leicester boutique outfit’s slide into toe-curling incompetence has been tough to take; a big balls up, in fact, with poor quality control, a total lack of communication, and their naughty circumventing of the BBFC (their first pressings of Nightmares In a Damaged Brain and Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals were slapped out unauthorised) seeing the goodwill generated by their inaugural Slasher and Italian pick ups quickly evaporating.

Bargain priced and easily available (it’s retailing for less than ten quid across most of the big sites and stores), Evilspeak, then, is a mea culpa in every sense; from its cool, Graham Humphreys artwork, to its deeply satisfying extras spread and transfer. The most comprehensive set of Eric Weston’s supernatural shocker available, 88’s package is a genuine ‘best of’ mongrel; all bar one of the key supplements from every previous edition ported over to create the so far definitive Evilspeak experience.

Front and centre is, of course, the same satisfying transfer that graced Scream Factory’s Blu. Struck from the film’s interpositive and first debuting in downgraded form on Code Red’s 2013 DVD, the 1.78:1-presented HD scan (produced by Code Red’s prickly owner, Bill Olsen, and supervised by Weston) is cracking stuff; its clarity, texture and naturalistic colour balance as good as a low budget genre flick of Evilspeak‘s vintage could possibly look. And like Code Red’s old webstore exclusive, sound comes via a decent mono track, while Olsen’s trifecta of short interviews with Evilspeak‘s stars Clint Howard, Don Stark and Joe Cortese are lifted – as Scream Factory did – once more.

Scream Factory’s excellent, half hour making of (which, thrillingly, features a rare on-camera chat with schlock cinema journeyman Claude Earl Jones) and their fifteen minute chinwag with FX man Allan Apone are also brought across; the only absence being the Olsen-moderated Weston audio commentary. A fun but rambling listen, 88 have instead replaced it with the much better Weston, Howard, and Wally Lewis (the film’s location manager) yack track from Anchor Bay’s 2004 DVD. Full of anecdotes, it’s a lively, focused natter with most of Evilspeak‘s production touched upon. Howard’s admiration of how character vet co-star R.G. Armstrong snarls “cocksuckers”, however, is the undoubted highlight.

Cut by over eleven minutes for its Stateside theatrical run by distributor The Moreno Company, who removed assorted exposition as well as a few moments of censor-baiting gore, Anchor Bay’s UK arm actually reinstated Evilspeak‘s excised footage for their now out of print region two double discer. Brilliantly, 88 have carried it across; its availability in standard definition only doing little to diminish the thrill of being able to see the film in its unexpurgated version again. But that’s not to say that Evilspeak in its entirety is a masterwork, far from it. If anything, the extra stuff is only more mind-numbing padding; Weston’s stodgy pacing an endurance even in its shorter, more wildly available edit. Us Brits, though, have quite the storied history with Evilspeak; its sturdy rep on these shores built around its former spot on the Director of Public Prosecutions’ ‘video nasty’ list.

One of the thirty-nine now legendary titles successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, Videospace’s 1983 pre-cert VHS was banned before a classified version, with three minutes of snips, appeared in 1987 via their Horror Classics subsidiary (the master of which subsequently used on Prism Leisure’s worthless budget DVD in 2001). With the BBFC reportedly objecting to the film’s overt theme of Satanism (which impressed Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey enough for him to include it on a list of his own) and Apone’s deliciously tacky grue, the scissors were mostly taken to Evilspeak‘s crowd-pleasing highlights; Weston’s bonkers, head-lopping climax the biggest casualty.

The final, long-gestating vengeance of Howard’s bullied army cadet Stanley Coopersmith, it’s a spectacular pay-off; a wonderfully overblown sequence as grandiose and lip-smacking as the prom scene in Carrie that it’s loosely styled after. The greatest of all the lowbrow reworkings of Brian DePalma’s classic, Stephen King-based hair-raiser, Evilspeak may lack the finesse and heartbreaking drama of that particular offering but it’s sure intoxicatingly waffy; Weston’s melting pot of goofy fright moments – which include computer-aided black magic and a throng of flesh-eating pigs – memorable and distinguished.

The same applies to Evilspeak‘s cast too. The young Howard sure ain’t no Sissy Spacek; his bumbling Coopersmith often so whiny that it’s difficult to sympathise. The B pic stalwart, however, still manages to exude the same offbeat charisma that’d make his turns in such primo fodder as Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 and Ice Cream Man a decade or so later so fascinating; his ultra expressive face and body language weirdly, intensely hypnotic. Stark, Cortese, Jones, Armstrong and The Dungeonmaster‘s Richard Moll as the creepy Esteban are all top drawer as well; each ensuring that, even with its sluggish narrative dips, Evilspeak is a vital watch for scholars of cult horror.