SPIRITS
Like a long drink from a crap fountain
Is it possible for a good movie to star Erik Estrada? Probably not, but hey, I've got a pretty good imagination, and I think there's room in the world for a good movie that stars Erik Estrada. But this movie stars Erik Estrada as a priest. (this is where, if I could send out sound effects, you'd hear a toilet flushing)
The back of the box actually suggests that this is a sequel to both The Amityville Horror and The Legend Of Hell House. It's not. It also suggests that Estrada is playing "a handsome priest". Is Erik Estrada still considered handsome?
A team of experts investigates and stakes out old Heron House which keeps driving people insane. Soon enough they're all experiencing visions, hearing noises, and the like, except one psychic chick who's experiencing more than the rest. Ho-hum, twiddle my thumbs. So, yeah, what we've got here is yer standard-issue bald-faced The Haunting ripoff, except this one has Estrada tempted by a nun who's naked from the neck down.
Is there any horror movie cliché less scary in the 90's than the one where a demon-woman starts talking in a "demon voice" (an effect usually achieved by having the actor lay down two tracks of vocals, one regular, one lower-pitched and gruff)?
The dialogue is everything you'd expect ("There's something in that house, something evil!"), and nothing else is much noticeable at all. Lots of nudity though; something it seems I just can't get enough of these days.
Just boring beyond belief, the kind of thing that makes me wish I was dead and speeds me on my increasingly inevitable path to self-destruction. Directed by Fred Olen Ray, who's sort of like the king of crap, or at least the baron of banality.
"Father Merrin" is included in the list of Thank You's. I have no idea whether this is supposed to be an in-joke, if there's really a Father Merrin involved in this film, or if for whatever reason alt.horror's esteemed FrMerrin had something to do with it! (and if you did, you're gonna buuuuuuurn)