Superstition (1982)
Directed by: James W. Roberson
Written by: Brad White, Bret Thompson Plate, Galen Thompson, Michael O. Sajbel
Starring: Albert Salmi, James Houghton, Lynn Carlin
HCF may be one of the newest voices on the web for all things Horror and Cult, and while our aim is to bring you our best opinion of all the new and strange that hits the market, we still cannot forget about our old loves, the films that made us want to create the website to spread the word. So, now and again our official critics at the HCF headquarters have an urge to throw aside their new required copies of the week and dust down their old collection and bring them to the fore…. our aim, to make sure that you may have not missed the films that should be stood proud in your collection. The second of our three Rewinds this week is a little known supernatural shocker from the early 1980s, surely the Golden Age of the slasher movie!
HCF REWIND NO.42. SUPERSTITION[1982]
AVAILABLE ON DVD
DIRECTED BY: James W. Roberson
WRITTEN BY: Galen Thompson
STARRING: James Houghton, Albert Salmi, Lynn Carling
RUNNING TIME: 88 mins
REVIEWED BY:Dr Lenera, Official HCF Critic
In New England, two teens making out in a car in front of an abandoned house are scared away by two other teenagers playing a prank, who, when they go into the house, are killed by an unseen menace. The local police, who think a cult may have killed the two teenagers, want to tear the house down but the place is owned by the church and the new pastor Reverend David Thomas decides the house should be renovated so that another priest, a recovering alcoholic named George Leahy, can move in with his wife, two daughters and son. This is despite the rather odd next door neighbours, the elderly Elondra, who spends most of her time outside sitting in her chair watching everyone, and her mute son Arlan, who may be dangerous. A cop is pulled into the pond and, when David attempts to drain it, a huge gold crucifix is found…………
Sort of a combination slasher/haunted house flick, Superstition is one of those films that I’d heard about for many years, but never got around to viewing until now. A relatively low budget affair hailing from Canada, it’s a fairly obscure movie, but does have a small cult following and every now and again I have either heard it or read it mentioned in almost mythical terms, kind of “you like horror movies, do you remember….o what was it called….Superstition….such a cool film….loads of gory deaths etc”. It was so popular in the UK in the early days of video that it got a subsequent cinema release in 1984, though under the title The Witch and on a double bill with Titan Find. Not long after that it was briefly on the Greater Manchester Police’s list of films subject to seizure during the Video Nasty scare, though it was never on the ‘official’ Video Nasty list and was re-released uncut a few years later, though some claim cut versions also made it onto video shop shelves. These days, it only merits a ‘15’ certificate, though considering some of the stuff you see in the Final Destination movies a ’15 ‘ is hardly restrictive anymore!
Well I must tell you that Supersition is certainly not a classic, and isn’t even especially good. What it is though is great tacky fun which is never dull despite hardly ever moving away from its main house setting, and will make for decent viewing with some mates and loads of beers. It takes itself fairly seriously, but is still quite amusing in parts. It doesn’t have the nail biting suspense of a very good slasher movie, nor does it have the uneasy fear of a classic haunted house film, but I doubt you’ll be bored! You know if you’re going to like it or not during the opening sequence, right from the beginning of a couple necking in a car. They are surprised by a bloody corpse, but it’s a fake, something constructed by two other teenagers who like to play pranks. They decide to explore the house but lose each other. One of them is drawn to an open microwave which is making a humming noise. We cut to the other guy, who wonders around calling his friend’s name for what seems like forever until he sees the microwave, only it’s got his mate’s head in it, which then….explodes. He flees in panic and tries to scramble through a window…which cuts him in half. Cool!!!
We are introduced to a family about to move in to the house, the two weird next door neighbours who know more than they are letting on, the police investigating, and a guy being suddenly pulled into the water, so it really seems we are going to get a fine horror movie, albeit one full of cliches! Sadly though, we don’t. The film is constantly enjoyable, which is certainly a good thing, but doesn’t make the most of its ingredients. It fails to work up much atmosphere or even suspense, and I doubt you’ll be frightened, except for one rather effective bit where the young son is in the cellar. Director James W. Roberson was usually a cinematographer and Superstition certainly has some decent camera work, with lots of pans around rooms and going towards the backs of people, but there are a little too many false scares of the “tapping on the shoulder and turning round to see….nothing scary” variety. The film seems to be scared of boring its audience so never slows down enough to build some decent atmosphere.
What it does have, though, is a large amount of kills, some of which display flair and a Final Destination feel that fans of that series will certainly enjoy. Aside from the opening murders, we are also treated such delights as a buzz saw going through a stomach and out of the back, a strangulation by lift wires, a crushing by wine press and a staking to the floor through the forehead, though perhaps too many deaths occur off screen in the second half. Still, the movie doesn’t seem to care who it kills, and the whole affair has a certain randomness which is quite appealing. A ghost girl every now and again appears, blood pours from wine bottles, bodies turn up all over the place. I detected a slight influence of The Beyond at times, while a flashback sequence is very similar to the one in Black Sunday. So you have a Lucio Fulci influence and a Mario Bava influence, but where’s the Dario Argento influence? Well, it’s present in the last twenty minutes, where, for no apparent reason other than it looks good, the film is bathed in turquoise filters.
As it progresses, the story throws up a few interesting elements but they are rather thrown away amidst some confusion. The killer, who it turns out is a Witch, veers between being a scaly arm and an invisible force of huge strength, while the two neighbours are not satisfactorily explained. The script tells us too much for the film to be successfully surreal, but not enough for it to make sense as a proper story, so it falls somewhere inbetween and just does not really satisfy. With a score that veers between weakly imitating Fabio Frizzi [Fulci’s favourite composer] and annoying repetition of the famous dies irae Mass Of The Dead, Superstition never reaches the heights it appears to be almost half-heartedly striving for. The performances are awful and really will make you laugh at times, especially during some laughable arguments. I cannot really say that it is a good film, but you know what, now I have the DVD, I can see myself sticking it on quite often for relaxation, more often than many films I own that are a lot better!
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