Fear No Evil (1981) 3 of 10 stars ⭐ Give this a pass... Meandering, capricious, weird

Give this a pass... Meandering, capricious, weird

FEAR NO EVIL (1981) 3 of 10 stars ⭐

(*WARNING: ANIMAL ABUSE see below)

BASIC PLOT:

This is a WEIRD movie! It doesn't fit in the category of slasher film, it's just STRANGE!

An incarnation of the devil, keeps being reborn, and two archangels keep being reborn into human form too, so they can destroy him.

The film opens with the previous incarnation being destroyed by one of the archangels, who's been born a priest.

Then we jump to a christening gone horribly wrong, so we assume the devil has been born again. His behavior is hard on his parents, basically driving them both mad, but not in an The Omen (1976) type of way, because we immediately jump to his senior year in high school.

There's a girl the devil likes, but she's engaged to a soon-to-be med student. The devil takes care of him, in a deranged game of dodgeball. Turns out, the girl is one of the archangels, that's here to destroy him.

This movie can't decide what it wants to be, so it does nothing well. It's not an old school horror movie, it's not a slasher movie, and it's not a teen scream. It jumps around, it has plot points and story lines that either go nowhere, or are never explained. It is just a mess!

WHAT WORKS: 

*THE SOUNDTRACK IS GREAT! There are quite a few good songs in this, from David Bowie, The Ramones, The Talking Heads, The Sex Pistols, etc.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: 

*THERE ARE MANY WEIRD, UNNECESSARY SCENES. There's a jerk character, who's always smacking around his girlfriend, and one day in the gym shower, the devil incarnate "kisses" (more like sucks the life force) the jerk. This happens while everyone is naked, and 5 other guys stand around and watch. It's bizarre! It's not even homoerotic, it's just odd, and doesn't make sense in the scheme of things.

*MORE WEIRDNESS There's another peculiar scene, where the towns folk, are all watching a reenactment of the last supper/crucifixion. They never say why they are doing the reenactment, or why the whole town came out for it. It's just a capricious storyline, with no point whatsoever.

*EVERYTHING HERE IS SUBTEXT, and that can be good. Movies that are too telegraphed are boring, but this movie takes it too far. You're constantly guessing about what's going on, instead of knowing, and that's never a good thing.

TO RECOMMEND OR NOT TO RECOMMEND, THAT IT THE QUESTION: 

I rarely recommend a movie that uses animal abuse/sacrifice as a plot device. If he'd sacrificed a human, I wouldn't have had a problem. But using animal abuse as way to show someone is bad or evil, is just plain lazy writing.

However, I wouldn't have recommended this movie even without the animal sacrifice. It is a weird, meandering journey, with no real point, or scares. The gore isn't even up to par, and if you're a fan of slasher films, or of being entertained, I'd give this a pass.

CLOSING NOTES: 

*I don't believe in trigger warnings except in the case of rape, suicide or animal abuse. This movie has a graphic, and unneeded scene of animal abuse. A dog is killed in a violent, and brutal way. It does not advance the plot, and is completely unnecessary.