Superstition (1985)

So much average

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Supestition aka The Witch is simply awesome!Simple, with one location and small cast, the word of the day is Horror, and rightly so.From the get-go, this little classic has some amazing kills, gory and crass, with enough haunting moments to garner a few chills along the way.Its 1982 for crying out loud, so lets not complain about the over dramatic performances. Just sit back and enjoy a true horror movie that really entertains.Superstition is super. Can't wait to find a digitally remastered version!

Though distinct subgenres, it didn't take long for the supernatural horror film and the slasher film to breed. The offspring, the supernatural slasher, would later become widely popular in the late eighties, with the "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Hellrasier" franchises. Yet earlier examples exist, such as 1982's "Superstition," a surprisingly brutal horror flick that freely mixes the supernatural with gory kills.The film begins like many horror films of the era. With a couple making out in a car, outside a spooky old building. When a creepy face pops out next to their window, the teens show a surprisingly amount of intelligence by getting the heck out of there. The pranksters responsible for the creepy dummy aren't so smart. They stay inside the old house and are brutally murdered by a mysterious force. Turns out the home is owned by the local church. A new family, the Leahys, are moving into the building. The head priest dying in an especially grotesque accident doesn't deter them any. The house is in fact cursed, haunted by the spirit of a witch executed in the 1800s. Now that a silver cross has been removed from the near-by lake, where the witch was drowned centuries ago, her spirit is free to wreck havoc. Reverend in-training David seems to be the only one aware of this and its up to him to save the day."Superstition" is mostly notable for its incredible violence. Most American slasher films of the early eighties took after "Halloween," suggesting far more gore then they actually showed. "Superstition," on the other hand, takes after the sadism of Italian splatter flicks. The movie begins with a head exploding in a microwave before showing somebody sawed in half at the waist. Before the boy dies, his upper half writhes in agony. The older priest dies when a buzz-saw spins off its handle, bouncing across the room, slamming into his chest, blood spraying everywhere. A body is crushed in a wine press. A railroad spike is slowly hammered into a teenage girl's face. A mirror explodes, glass shredding a man's body. Even the milder kills have a mean spirit about them, such as the family's mother being tossed around a room for minutes. To show how uncompromising the film is, even a young child is killed. Despite being about a stereotypical cackling witch, "Superstition" is uniformly nasty.Yet the film has something else going for besides its brutal gore. "Superstition" manages to build some impressive atmosphere. The movie is a bit of a slow build, various red herrings being explore in the first hour, such as the mentally disabled son of the creepy old woman next door. The last half-hour, however, is confined almost solely to the house. The lights go off, bathing the whole film in a cool blue. The black shadows blend with the blue night, lending a classical haunted house vibe. The best moment involves the witch appearing at the top of the steps, her robes billowing in the wind, her body silhouetted against the window. Even if its harsh gore is bound to be more memorable, "Superstition" still succeeds at other goals.Interestingly, none of the family members are the main character. In truth, they're one of the film's weakest attributes. The two daughters are both somewhat annoying. The blonde spends a lot of time in bed, traumatized from an earlier attack. The brunette, meanwhile, argues with her parents as they refuse to acknowledge something weird is happening. The father is an alcoholic and the mother doesn't even get that much characterization. A subplot involves detectives investigating an earlier murder. This storyline is bluntly resolved when both men are killed by the witch. Similarly, the plot involving the old woman and her son doesn't go much of anywhere. Instead, the hero of film is another man of the cloth. David Thompson is a man of God and an unlikely sleuther. Thompson, as played by James Houghton, is a surprisingly likable hero, especially when he becomes a hero at the end."Superstition's" grim tone and strong violence are met with a grim ending. This is one of the few slashers I can think of where evil wins. Even if the film is nihilistic and downbeat, there's still something interesting about it. Gorehounds are bound to love it but there's enough unique about the film to keep it interesting to experienced horror fans.

This horror film from 1982 was not to bad. For the most part I liked it, I would have enjoyed it more if it had maintained its super fast start where there were killings every few moments. It gets a bit slow there after a certain point and begins to get to talky, however it picks up near the end and finishes well enough to turn it from a bad film to an okay one. The story has this house that is very much cursed as it is the site of one tragedy after another. I mean, there is so much going on within the first few minutes of the film that they really should have like just condemned the place and forbid people from getting anywhere near it. Seriously, when a saw blade pops off and has enough force to kill a person then I do not care what your rationale is, you should definitely get the heck out. Instead, in this movie they move a family of five in. A reverend, his wife, their son, and their way to attractive daughters. Seriously, these two were way to hot to be the couple in this movie's two daughters. Well another reverend and a detective try to unravel the mystery, and they do so very poorly as by the end lets just say not to many survivors to be found. Of course, the police quickly suspect the mute guy, while the reverend is not to sure, however by the time he figures things out it is basically to late. The deaths are pretty good for the time as there are some interesting deaths like a microwave scene, a saw blade, and a nasty impaling. However, it does get dull after a certain point, before the end when the final killing spree occurs, there is the question of what was the point of the little girl which I know who she was, I just do not understand why as she disappeared for much of the movie kind of making her seem like a pointless inclusion. Also, it seemed like a lot of times the music was copying "The Shining". Overall though I enjoyed it.

***SPOILERS** Nowhere as effective as it was back in 1982 when it was first released, in being banned in countries like the UK, "Supersition' still gives off a number of jolts to its audience in that almost everyone in the film ends up suffering a gruesome death by the time it's over.The standard horror movie plot has to do with this creepy old house that was involved some 300 years ago in the execution-by drowning-of its owner accused witch and Satanist Elondra Sharack. Over the years anyone who lived in the Sharack house who wasn't a Sharack family member met a horrific death. Now with a new Reverend-Rev. Thompson-in town looking to disprove that the Sharack House is haunted by the Devil him or herself the horrors that were dormant there for so long came back! And came back with a vengeance.Afer a few horrific deaths in and around the Sharack House were then brought back to olden times-the summer of 1692-to when the house got cursed by it's owner Elowdra Sharack who was declared a witch by the local priest Pike. After Elowdra's execution Pike and the townspeople who participated in it started to get second thoughts about what they did. That's because most of them ended up getting mysteriously killed with Pike's church being burned down moments after Elowdra's execution! As time went on anyone who lived in the Sharack House ended up meeting a terrifying death there with the exception of Elowdra's most recent descendant Elvira and her mute and brain damaged son Arien who were immune from her curse.***SPOILERS*** Playing with fire Rev. Thompson had the Leahy family headed by Rev. John move into the Sharack House until he could find them a permanent place to stay in town. If Rev. Thompson didn't know it at the time he soon found out that by having the Leahys move into the cursed Sharack House he in fact condemned them to death!One of the goriest and blood splattered horror flicks to come out in the 1980's "Superstition" also had one of the most effective exorcism scene in it, conducted by Rev. Pike on Elonda Sharack, that was far more convincing and believable, with the dubbing perfectly matching Elonda's lips, then even in the the movie " The Exorist" itself!