Written and Directed by Frank LaLoggia

At home we see that Andrew has cast a shadow of gloom over his parents relationship and his father (Barry Cooper) even proclaims at one point that he doesn’t really know who his son is. At high school, Andrew gets perfect grades but he isn’t athletic and gets bullied by the other guys at school. This sets up a situation where Andrew eventually resorts to using his dark powers to take control of his life and get back at all those who have been mistreating him. In the end he (Andrew/Lucifer) returns to his castle on the lake, resurrects the dead to bring about death and destruction to the small population living in upstate New York locations.

FEAR NO EVIL stands out against most of the independently made horror films from the late 70s to mid 80s. It boasts more supernatural force than ninety-eight percent of all the other horror films made around that period of time.

Being a fan of the film since I first saw it on cable back in the early 80s, I found the audio commentary provided by Frank LaLoggia and Director of Photography Fred Goodich engaging though it is a bit heavy on technical film details. As I director, I appreciate good cinematography, all the comments about lenses, nets and film stock by Goodich were interesting but the casual movie fans may find it dry and somewhat boring. The best stuff was hearing how the film came together and how they were able to make the film without a distributor locked in. After principal photography, they ran out of money and needed to get an extra $300,000 to finish postproduction. Joel Coen (Director of BLOOD SIMPLE and FARGO) served as an assistant editor on the film.

The Making of Fear No Evil – It was really awesome for me to get to see how Frank LaLoggia and his talented crew went about making this film. 20 minutes of behind the scenes footage are pieced together to make this short documentary. It’s all video clips of catching the cast and crew at work. It will please anyone interested in this movie or the filmmaking experience. It’s amazing how they pulled off the various physical and special effects, not to mention capturing the outstanding upstate New York locations.

Directed by Tom DeSimone
Written by Randy Feldman

Before being able to join Alpha Sigma Rho fraternity and its sister sorority, four pledges must spend the night in Garth Manor, twelve years to the day after the previous resident murdered his entire family. Some, however, say that one member of the Garth family survived, and still resides somewhere in the now-deserted mansion.

This is a classic set-up for the characters to be put into a position where they don’t expect any Garth family member to still exist but they can’t be sure either. This gives the fraternity leaders the platform to pull all sorts of scary initiation tricks on the newcomers but the fraternity leaders and pledges are not prepared to deal with what still lives within the mansion.

HELL NIGHT is Linda Blair’s second best film. She is realistic as Marti, a college student who is trying to be one of the gang and thrown into a situation where she has to fight for her life. Vincent Van Patten stands out as Seth a California surfer type dude who stands up and fights to save his friends. For me, it is most memorable role of his acting career. Peter Barton is very likable as Jeff Reed. He brings a sensitive side that gels well in the quiet scenes with Linda Blair. Suki Goodwin brings sexiness to the screen as Denise. Kevin Brophy is a recognizable face and was a good casting choice as the fraternity leader Peter Bennett.

Mac Ahlberg was the cinematographer on HELL NIGHT and he creates dark shadowy images that are appropriately suspenseful. Many of the scenes are shot in candlelight, which makes the movie spooky and atmospheric.

Audio Commentary is provided by star Linda Blair, Director Tom DeSimone and Producers Bruce Cohn Curtis & Irwin Yablans. These four provide jovial comments about making the picture and fondly recall the fun and difficulty they experienced shooting the film in the winter of 1980-1981. Some of the highlights of the comments include Tom DeSimone stating they choose to put the characters in costumes to give the film more of a timeless quality and that this dress style would make it more interesting than seeing the characters in jeans and t-shirts. It was also worthy to note how some of the storyline/action/cinematic choices were made based on what was done in other films like CARRIE, HALLOWEEN (a film Irwin Yablans produced) and TERROR TRAIN. The thing I was most impressed with was that they built the roof of the mansion on a soundstage because it honestly looked real. The crew used large fans to create the wind you would feel (see) on a roof and this really added a touch of realism. The production actually shot at a real mansion for exteriors but the inside was a different place. This was a great job by Art Director by Steven Legler.

Directed by Michele Soavi
Written by Nick Alexander, Dario Argento

After the prologue, we move through the massive cathedral that was built and how it stands in modern day. We see the building is being renovated as a gentleman named Evan arrives to take over the job of librarian. As Evan walks through the church he meets a perky artist named Lisa (Barbara Cupisti) and Lotte (Asia Argento) the young daughter of Sacristan (Roberto Corbiletto). Evan and Lisa develop a relationship while searching through the cathedral. Lotte plays throughout the cathedral sneaking though secret passageways and seems to know something about the church that she is not saying. At this point the film has a sense of gothic historical doom. This makes for an interesting first half.

Unfortunately things get stupid. The deep wicked secret within the foundation of the church rises up to bring back doom. This happens just after an assortment of stereotype people show up at the church, which includes a priest, a schoolteacher and her students, an elderly couple, a model and her entourage, and a young biker couple. These characters get locked in the church as demons attack the group one by one. The main characters from the first half are pretty much ignored except for Lotte and this makes the film chaotic and confusing. The new characters are not all that interesting, which makes you care little about them. One-dimensional would best the description. Most of the actors playing these new characters only reach the surface.

The second half of THE CHURCH becomes one large set piece designed to show people getting killed as creatively as possible. Sergio Stivaletti does a good job on the special make-up effects (which are credited as Special Scenic Creations) but these don’t make the movie necessarily better. I would say that Sergio Stivaletti is Italy’s closest thing to Rick Baker or Rob Bottin.

Michele Soavi has trouble getting realistic performances out of the cast in the second half of film but I’m not certain all is his fault. Poor writing must attribute to this along with guidance from the producers. I also think that Soavi has the same problem Dario Argento has at times, where the style of the camera draws attention and takes you out of the movie.

THE CHURCH comes with Theatrical Trailer and Michele Soavi’s Bio.

Directed by Albert De Martino
Written by Gianfranco Clerici and Albert De Martino

A young girl is severely injured in a car accident leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. Now as an adult she goes under hypnosis, which takes her back to discover who she was before she was born and we find out (see) that she gave herself to the devil and now the dark lord is trying to come back within her body as the Antichrist.

There is a perverse orgy scene that involves a goat (Satan) that will test the limits of your stomach.

Anchor Bay does a top quality job on the DVD transfer and though it’s mono audio, the score by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai is probably the highlight of the film.

Directed by Carlos Aured
Written by Jacinto Molina

Flash-forward; Waldemar Daninsky (Jacinto Molina a.k.a. Paul Naschy), one of the king's offspring, shoots a wild dog that turns out to be a man who is a local gypsy. This puts the curse in motion for the Daninsky family. The gypsies send a beautiful woman to seduce Waldemar. While Waldemar is asleep the sexy woman uses a wolf skull to inflict the curse of the werewolf upon him.

The rest of the film features Waldemar alternating between being internally tormented as Waldemar and acting out as a werewolf, with make-up that looks along the lines of Michael Landon in I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF.

The acting is somewhat wooden and many of the cast goes over the top. The actors who perform the replacement dialogue certainly didn’t help the performances either.

Supplements include a 15-minute interview with Paul Naschy in Spanish with English subtitles. Naschy’s real name is Jacinto Molina. He admits "not a very interesting name." Molina was Spain's lightweight powerlifting champion in 1958 and tells of his big break into show business. He discloses the origin of his now-famous stage name; "Paul" came from a photo of Pope Paul VI, "Naschy" from a Hungarian weightlifter. Molina also says that he made the Waldemar Daninsky character Polish because the Spanish censors would not let a Spanish character portray violence and sexuality onscreen.

Directed by Peter Sykes
Screenplay by John Peacock

An excommunicated priest named Father Michael Rayner (Christopher Lee) sets up a satanic cult. The cult disguises itself as part of the Catholic Church. Rayner convinces Henry Beddows (Denholm Elliot) to sign over his daughter's soul (Catherine Beddows) so that she will birth the Devil on her eighteenth birthday. As that day nears, Henry Beddows seeks the help of an American occult novelist John Verney (Richard Widmark) to save Catherine from carrying it out.

Peter Sykes direction is a bit stiff; lacking the kind of cinematic flair captured comparatively in THE EXORCIST and THE OMEN. I guess my biggest problem is that TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER doesn’t have much atmosphere, which really hurts the film. In many ways the film looks and plays like a television movie with nudity and blood.

To The Devil…the Death of Hammer is an excellent 24-minute documentary that thoroughly covers the situation that resulted in Hammer having to close its doors. It was surprising hearing that nobody liked actor Richard Widmark, because he constantly complained that the British crew was not working like they do in Hollywood. Many different folks talk honestly how Hammer had lost their creativity in the late 60s and admitted they Hammer could not compete with the films being made in America like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, ROSEMARY’S BABY, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, THE EXORCIST. Christopher Lee talks about his career and explains that this film came to be when Novelist Dennis Wheatley gave Christopher Lee the go ahead to choose any of his books to make a film. Lee goes onto to say that when the powers to be at Hammer choose to change the ending of the film that it took away the film’s strength and disgusted Dennis Wheatley. The result was that Wheatley proclaimed he would never let Hammer make any more of his work and though TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER brought in lots of money at the box office it couldn’t save Hammer.

The DVD also comes with the Theatrical Trailer, Poster and Still Gallery and Talent Bios.