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[Blu-ray Review] ‘Evilspeak’ Delivers Satanic Insanity!
Director Eric Weston’s 1981 film Evilspeak gets compared to Carrie a lot, with its pathetic outsider constantly harassed by the more popular kids in school. Here it’s a military academy, so you know the student body is made up of more brutal assholes than a public school. The outsider is played by the prolific Clint Howard, who embodies the film’s loser mind, body, and soul. That last statement gets quite literal towards the end of the film, when Howard’s soul becomes possessed by the spirit of a centuries old Satanist (Richard Moll – House). While it’s not the most original tale, Evilspeak does manage to entertain with its deliriously insane climax.
Howard stars as cadet Stanley Coopersmith (or, “Cooperdick” by his peers). Stanley is an orphan, sent to the school by his relatives who have no interest in taking care of the clumsy, awkward kid. At school, he gets it from both ends. The students and faculty give him shit every chance they get. When he blows a big soccer game, he’s ordered to clean out the basement underneath the campus chapel. There Stanley stumbles upon an ancient manuscript written by Father Esteban (Moll), a Satanist who once summoned the Devil during a Black Mass. Through this text, Stanley finds his ticket for sweet, Satanic revenge.
There’s a technological angle in Evilspeak that’s fun, but never fully explored. The text Stanley finds is in Latin, so he uses a translate program to decipher it. The spirit of Father Esteban gradually takes over the computer (at least I think that’s what happens) and this leads to some really cool graphics with pentagrams and naked ladies and shit. It’s suggested that the computer, which Stanley keeps hidden in the chapel basement, plays a major role in the summoning of Esteban, but I think it was included solely for the purpose of cool ’80s graphics.
Evilspeak takes a while to really get going, but once it does, buckle up. The finale is genuinely bonkers, with Clint Howard establishing himself as the lord of evil pigs. He wields a sword and floats through the air with his hair up in troll doll fashion. Three decades later, it’s still a jaw-dropping site. This is a great lead role for Howard. He earns our sympathy really quick as the mellow loser, then closes the film as this demi-god of carnage, cutting fools’ heads off. Man, it’s a beautiful site and despite its lack of creativity, Evilspeak manages to one helluva ride.
Scream Factory offers up the film in HD for the first time, following Code Red’s uncut DVD from last year. Details are sharp and the colors are strong. There is some print damage here and there, but nothing that overtly distracts from the film. The mono soundtrack is solid as well. The film’s score is really bizarre and features lots of chanting, if you’re into that.
The commentary track features director and co-writer Eric Weston and moderator Bill Olsen from Code Red. They go over the basic stuff, but the details he gives on effects work is by far the most interesting (you can totally see the wires hanging Howard in this HD presentation). Working with pigs sounds awful.
The other special features carried over from the Code Red release are the cast interviews with Howard, Joseph Cortese, Claude Earl Jones, Haywood Nelson, Richard Moll, and Don Stark. Howard’s interview is pretty interesting. He talks about how he initially didn’t want to do the picture because of all the demonic elements, but his old man talked him into it.
New to the Blu-ray is a 30 minute documentary about the making of the film, which fans will definitely want to check out. It features cast and crew going over a lot of the film’s details and what it was like on set. There’s also a separate interview with effects wizard Allan Apone who covers details about the film’s gruesome effects.
The added features and video upgrade should make Scream Factory’s Evilspeak Blu-ray a welcome upgrade, even if fans purchased the Code Red DVD just last year.
Scream Factory brought Frank LaLoggia’s 1988 Halloween movie Lady in White to Blu-ray several years back, and now Vinegar Syndrome gives the film a 4K Ultra HD upgrade.
Vinegar Syndrome’s Lady in White 4K release is available now and shipping now!
Watch the trailer below and grab your copy from Vinegar Syndrome today.
This limited edition 4-disc 4K UHD/Blu-ray x 3 set comes with a spot gloss hard slipcase + slipcover combo (designed by Dylan Haley), includes a 40-page perfect bound book and is limited to 8,000 units. It is only available on their website and at select indie retailers.
The full Special Features package includes…
- 4-disc Set: 1x 4K Ultra HD (High Bitrate BD100) / 3x Region A Blu-ray
- 4K UHD presented in Dolby Vision High-Dynamic-Range
- Newly scanned & restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative
- Presented in three versions: 126-min Pre-Release Director’s Cut (UHD+BD), the 118-min Extended Home Video Cut (BD), and the 113-min Theatrical Cut (BD)
- New group commentary track with writer/director Frank LaLoggia, alongside actors Lukas Haas, Joelle Jacobi, and Len Cariou for the Pre-Release Director’s Cut
- New commentary track with Frank LaLoggia, moderated by Scott Neumyer for the Extended Home Video Cut
- New commentary track with authors Emma Westwood and Stephen A. Russell for the Extended Home Video Cut
- Archival commentary track with Frank LaLoggia for the Extended Home Video Cut
- “Learning How to Fly” (10 min) – an interview with actress Karen Powell
- “A Snapshot in Time” (9 min) – an interview with actress Lisa Taylor
- “Human Touches” (6 min) – an interview with actress Lucy Lee Flippin
- “Still Relevant” (16 min) – an interview with actress Rose Weaver
- “75% Listening, 25% Editing” (9 min) – an interview with editor Steve Mann
- “Welcome to Willowpoint Falls” (6 min) – a location featurette hosted by Benjamin Scrivens, founder of Fright-Rags
- “Dream Talking: Looking Back” – a visual group commentary for the Pre-Release Director’s Cut with Frank LaLoggia, and actors Lukas Haas, Joelle Jacobi, and Len Cariou (103 min)
- Deleted Scenes with introduction and optional commentary by writer/director Frank LaLoggia (36 min)
- Behind-the-scenes footage with introduction and optional commentary by writer/director Frank LaLoggia (16 min)
- Extended behind-the-scenes footage (73 min)
- Introduction from the 20th anniversary dvd release
- Promotional ‘industry sales’ trailer (7 min)
- 40-page perfect bound book with essays by film historians Molly Henery, Mark H. Harris, and Heidi Honeycutt (limited edition only)
- Multiple radio spots
- Theatrical trailer
- Multiple TV spots
- Workprint trailers (7 min)
- Still gallery
- Reversible sleeve artwork
- English SDH subtitles
1962. Nine-year-old Frankie Scarlatti enjoys a homespun childhood in a rustic Western New York town. The entire community gets into the spirit of Halloween, but then two bullies prank Frankie by locking him in his school cloakroom, leaving him trapped for the night. Alone and afraid, his slumber is interrupted when the ghost of a little girl appears, and Frankie witnesses the specter of her murder by an unseen assailant. Later, while recovering at home, the girl’s ghost appears to him again. With help from his older brother, Frankie begins investigating the circumstances of her death. He soon discovers that her murder was one of several unsolved crimes connected to a local child-killer. As the town’s bucolic veneer fades and long-buried secrets and tensions bubble to the surface, all of the clues to the mystery seem to point towards a huge mansion inhabited by a reclusive woman known as “The Lady in White.”
A nostalgia-driven ghost story wrapped within an intricate murder mystery and coming-of-age drama, writer-director-composer Frank LaLoggia’s passion project Lady in White remains one of the most beautiful and original American horror films of the 1980s. Featuring acclaimed actors Alex Rocco (The Godfather), Len Cariou (Executive Decision), and Sydney Lassick (Carrie, The Unseen), it boasts the first starring role by Lukas Haas (Mars Attacks, Inception) as well as breathtaking photography by Academy Award® winner Russell Carpenter (True Lies, The Lawnmower Man). Vinegar Syndrome is honored to bring this genre masterpiece to 4K UHD, newly restored from its original 35mm camera negative and presented in three versions: its pre-release director’s cut, its extended home-video version, and its original theatrical version, along with an abundance of both new and archival extras.
Paul Lê wrote here on Bloody Disgusting back in 2023, “Over the years, fans have described this film as gateway horror, but they liken it more to The Watcher in the Woods than, say, Hocus Pocus or Casper. There are chilling moments that warrant its PG-13 rating.”
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