Bullies suck and if you’re a bully, you better watch out because a satanic cult could be coming after you! Evilspeak drives that point home, big time! Full of beheadings, Satanic pigs and Clint Howard being picked on relentlessly, until he snaps and summons the evil Esteban (Richard Moll in a small role). Evilspeak is one crazy wild ride and thanks to Scream Factory, it’s presented to you in glorious HD on Blu-ray. Read on to see why you should worship this movie.
Release: Feb 26th, 1982
Rating: UNRATED/R
Run time: 92 mins
Starring: Clint Howard, Don Stark
Director: Eric Weston
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: A military cadet who happens to be a social outcast taps into a way to summon demons and cast spells on his tormentors through his computer.
Tatlock’s Quick ‘n Dirty Recap: Until Scream Factory released this movie on Blu-ray, I had never heard of the movie Evilspeak, which is a shame, because it’s a lot of fun to watch. Clint Howard pulls in a wonderful performance as Stanley Coopersmith, a military student who lost his parents when he was younger and is now being constantly picked on by almost every single person at his school. The teachers hate him, most of the students hate him and he just can’t catch a break. That is until he finds a walled-up room in the cellar of the academy, that houses the secrets of the evil cult of Esteban, a man, who many years ago, worshipped the devil and had a loyal following. It doesn’t take long for Stanley to begin the process of summoning the power of the devil (through his 80s computer no less), to rid his enemies from this Earth and holy shit, does it ever work.
Tatlock’s Opinion: Evilspeak takes its time setting up the plight of Stanley Coopersmith, with each passing scene making you hate his bullies more and more. The breaking point for both Stanley and I’m guessing most of the viewers, involved a horrific scene that I won’t spoil, but when you see it, you’ll know what I’m talking about. That’s the point that the shit hit the fan and all hell broke loose. This provides us with an ending that is full of gore and killings left and right. However, it also gives us a few negatives.
The ending itself doesn’t exactly resolve itself and instead, slaps up a silly text block explaining what happens after, which to me, made no sense. It’s a poor excuse for an ending. As for the other negative, some of the special effects are laughable. There is a ton of beheadings in this movie and more often than not, they are extremely cheesy looking. When the head goes a flying, it looks like a foam dummy and the camera lingers a little too long, which really drives home the point that it’s pretty damn fake. Still, a silly ending and a few crappy effects aren’t going to make me hate this movie.
Blu-ray Features:
– NEW 1080p High-Definition Transfer Supervised And Approved By Eric Weston
– Audio Commentary With Producer/Director Eric Weston
– Interviews With Cast Members Joseph Cortese, Clint Howard And Don Stark
– Theatrical Trailer
Verdict: I ended up really enjoying Evilspeak. I felt for our main character and I really wanted him to punish these bullies and boy, do you ever get to see that go down, even if it does look mostly fake. The final scene, with its wall of text explanation, instead of an actual ending, might disappoint most, but everything good before it, makes up for it. Recommended!
Rating:
