A Clint Howard special here make no mistake, ‘Evilspeak’ is a solid Video Nasty that I didn’t really like the first time I saw it, but really quite enjoyed this time around.
The plot, a military school student (and orphan) Stanley Coopersmith is hated by almost everyone at the academy from the students to the teachers. He’s at an all time low, when he discovers a hidden room in the basement of the Catholic Church based inside the academy that houses a large number of satanic texts scribed in Latin.
Stanley translates one of the books and discovers that he can have immense power if he performs a black mass. As Stanley begins to explore satanism and its power, his bullying on all fronts grows and grows, until he finally snaps, with terrifying results.
The script isn’t the sharpest in the world, I felt it was a little too slowboil and the demonic element of the film is heavily underplayed. Which is a shame, but contrasting that the characters are complex and well written, with solid dialogue, the tone is near perfect for this and its ultimately a quite satisfying film, even if its a bit slower than I would have liked.
The directions pretty solid, it’s a Warner production, so it’s of quality, I don’t feel it quite exceeds *the standard* though.
The cine is a little bland on the colour front, but is creative and has some pretty solid sequence building. There are some ropey effects though that do downgrade things somewhat.
Performances are great, they’re no believable at all, but Clint Howard’s good fun and overall I enjoyed what I saw.
And the scores solid.
Its a bit slower than I’d have liked, a bit dry on the cine and he performances are a bit of a mixed ability room. But overall I thought Evilspeak was one of the better Nasties of the time. Easily in the upper half quality wise. And it’s one that, while I didn’t out and out love it. I could recommend it.
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