Is Deadly Blessing, Wes Craven's most overlooked film? Without it, would we have a burned nightmare on a certain street named after a tree? The bathtub scene, the creepy atmospheric kills and the dream sequences all have a Freaky Freddy Feeling.

I laugh how awful a thespian Sharon Stone is in this. She's very young, and the other two leading ladies act circles around her. Who would've guessed the other two would never act again, and Sharon would go on to play with ice picks in Basic Instinct and almost win an Oscar for Casino.

Deadly Blessing has a weird plot flow. You think you know whom the film will focus on, but then it does an odd turn, and…

A Stench In The Nostrils of God

'Deadly Blessing' is almost like a Wyeth painting with some detail or surface feature or embroidered aspect of such glaring off-keyness that it creates a surpassing sense of a horror so deep and vast that an entire culture was woven around and by it, or like if a Malick film tripped and hit its head on a rock in a field, blood streaming in its eyes having gone blind and mad with damage. The more I think about and watch 'Deadly Blessing' the more it becomes clear that this is maybe the key movie in Wes Craven's filmography, tying together thematically, narratively, and visually 'Last House on the Left', 'The Hills Have Eyes',…

Dear Diary,

So far 2017 has turned into the year of the rewatch, which I suppose is fitting as we're mostly watching movies we haven't seen since before signing up for Letterboxd [5 years ago]. I've always enjoyed Deadly Blessing, but I have a feeling I completely repressed Faith's twist because it's SO dumb, yet I still enjoy this hodgepodge horror film from Wes Craven despite it.

I'm a bit curious about the DVD commentary, mostly about what, if anything, Craven had to say about the inconsistent tone, was he unsure about what sort of movie he wanted to direct? Did he want to make a slasher? A demonic possession film? A psychological horror film? Instead of choosing one theme,…

I’m being quite brave by admitting that this was a first time watch. Yes, I know, it’s Craven and I should have seen this 35 years ago but this is one of those early 80’s horror films that slipped by.

Unfortunately I feel it would have meant something more to me if I had seen it back in the day.

I realized while watching this that Craven had a real formula… most of his films have the lead characters turning the tables on the stalker/killer and they essentially become revenge thrillers. Same goes with this one.

I never knew that the woman on the poster is Sharon Stone. Also, had no idea that the famous bathtub shot (sequence) from A…

Geoff T's Hoop-Tober 7.0 Challenge
‘Deadly’ Craven #1
Deadly Blessing (1981)

Was in the mood for some unseen Wes Craven, and Deadly Blessing seemed like an appropriate choice, an oddball chiller set against a religious backdrop.

On an isolated farmhouse in rural Texas live Martha and Jim Schmidt, who are in close proximity to a community of “Incubus”-fearing Hittites (led by Isaiah) who continuously harass them. When Jim becomes the unfortunate victim of a “tractor “accident”, Martha becomes convinced the Hittites have it in for her. Even after her friends Vicky and Lana (played a younger Sharon Stone) arrive to comfort her after Jim's death, the paranoia begins to close in as more bodies start turning up and the Hittite…

"She couldn't pour piss from a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel" -Louisa Stohler

DAILY HORROR HUNT 3 (September 2018): boxd.it/1YcFg
DAY FOUR: "September 4, 1943 Michael Berryman was born. We are watching one of his horror movies."

Wes Craven Ranked: boxd.it/1VXGE

Based on the poster I was expecting a prequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer, but instead I got something fucking fantastic.

After Martha's husband dies of mysterious circumstances, she and her friends (Sharon Stone and Hittite seducer Susan Buckner) become increasingly paranoid of the neighboring religious community (led by Ernest Borgnine) that may have diabolical plans for Martha, and her weird neighbors.

This movie is fucking insane at parts. I love the…

INCUBUS! INCUBUS!
-William Gluntz

An early offering from good old Wes Craven. He directed this sometime between The Hills Have Eyes and Swamp Thing, so that might be the reason it fell into obscurity or maybe it's because it also received horrid reviews. No matter, I thought this was GREAT.

The lead in the film is none other then Athena from Battlestar Galactica, Maren Jensen. I know that has no barring on anything but I loved her on that series and she's only been in a couple of TV series and one or two films before retiring from acting. In fact this is her last film and she's actually quite good in it.

She plays Martha Schmidt alongside her husband…

Deadly Blessing is a head-scratching oddity from Wes Craven. It's a bit shit, but I kind of liked it. It plays out, for the most part, as a bleak thriller-drama centring on a pack of aggressive Hittites (basically Amish people on steroids) and a widow (Maren Jensen) who has just lost her husband, an ex-Hittite, in a suspicious accident. Cue mysterious murders, snakes in bathtubs, and lots of shouts of "INCUBUS!"

Deadly Blessing chugs along at an enjoyable and leisurely pace. There's little in the way of death and violence, but there's the occasional intense moment of terror, usually involving a thoroughly traumatised and very young Sharon Stone. The film features a nightmare sequence that is among the most upsetting…

I was halfway expecting this to be bad, but it was actually really good stuff. It drags at moments but I loved the chilling direction from the great Wes Craven. As noted by many others in their reviews, there’s plenty of moments that Craven would use in later, much more popular flicks. You also get a college-aged Sharon Stone, who looks stunning as she always does, and an Amish Ernest Borgnine. As I said before, it’s slow at parts but the “slasher” type of scenes played out well with plenty of tension building. That ending was also somewhat unexpected and was wild as hell. This movie has it all without ever getting too lost. Glad I was able to snag…

Deadly Blessing is a lil' smatter platter of Wes Craven's best tropes; unexpected innovative nightmares, isolated "others" terrorizing yuppiedom, meta humour (look at what flick is playing at the theatre), and well-structured thriller/hybrid action scenes. It's too bad all of those elements don't equate to much.

Feeling like a predecessor to the X-Files episode "Gender Bender" the film sets up a couple tormented (and stalked?) by an Amishesque cult called the Hittites, then quickly morphs into typical slasher fare. The cast is strong (still confused how Ernest Borgnine got nominated for a Razzie - he's strong here against type), James Horner's ode to Goldsmith's Omen score is suitably creepy, and Scream Factory's restoration displays Robert C. Jessup's cinematography of rural…