Review: Heartland of Darkness

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2023
Images from the Internet

Heartland of Darkness (aka Fallen Angels; Blood Church)
Directed by Eric Swelstad
Donovan Productions; HOD Productions;
Visual Vengeance; Wild Eye Releasing; MVD Entertainment
101 minutes, 1992 / 2022
www.wildeyereleasing.com
www.mvdvisual.com

While this film was to be released in 1992 (though filmed in ’89, and not really finished until 30 years later), it had never been offered on any home format until now. And typical of the Visual Vengeance sub-brand of Wild Eye Releasing, this Blu-ray was supervised by director Eric Swelstad into an SD master from the original sources.

Who doesn’t love a good satanic cult movie, unless you are a fundamentalist yahoo? This film does not necessarily tread new ground, even though it is 30 years old. While many devil’s cult releases have come since then, it was preceded by the likes of The Devil’s Rain and Race with the Devil, both from 1975. But as I watch each film with an open mind, let’s hit the play button, shall we?

First of all, y’gotta love a film that, in its credits, presents Scream Queen Linnea Quigley with an “And” at the end of the cast list, even though it is 1992. Off to a good start.

Amusingly, I start off with a question about the prologue. Without giving away the reason, a man is being chased through the woods by said cult. I understand that the chasers are wearing sunglasses to indicate that they are a united group, but sunglasses after dark? Is this a Cramps song? Seems like a visual oxymoron, like someone wearing a baseball cap backwards, and shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. The map does not match the territory.

Dino Tripodis, Sharon Klopfenstein

As the story begins, ex-Chicago Tribune writer (saywhat?) Paul (stand-up and future DJ Dino Tripodis in his first IMDB listing) and his teenage daughter Christine (Sharon Klopfenstein, in her only role, as with most of the cast), who wears less and less as the film goes on, has just moved into a small town in Ohio (though mostly filmed around the Columbus area). Paul has taken over the local newspaper, The Copperton Chronicle, which obviously has been shuttered for years. Love the old typewriters. As I was a phototypesetter for a local Brooklyn weekly newspaper (The Weekly) in Bay Ridge during the late 1970s, this may indicate it had been shuttered for quite a few years. He soon hires Evelyn (Mary Alice Demas). Also hired right off is ex-The New York Times writer (saywhat?) and shoulder-pads wearing Shannon (Shanna Thomas). Love interest or cult plant? We shall see.

There are lots of personality contradictions. For example, the Sherriff (Lee Page) is grumpy to Paul, but gives him information. The local priest, Rev. Donovan (Nick Baldasare), obviously the bad guy, pressures Paul and Christine to show up at church. Would not fly with atheistic me. I mean, the biblical god killed way more innocent people than Satan did in their holy book. But I digress… Another digressive question: Paul is trying to make the local, small-town newspaper into a journalistic hotspot. Have ya ever seen a small-town newspaper? Usually, it is 90% local business advertising (i.e., the paper’s bread and butter), and the rest is what is going on at the Rotary Club, “coffee time” jokes, or who has a 75th wedding anniversary. The hardest news you will find will be how the local crop did this year, or changes in the trucking rules.

Nick Baldasare

Meanwhile, back to the show, Donovan quickly presents himself to be the villain that he is (again, no surprise), through his sermon (of which Christine is enamored). I mean, you know something is off when the congregation says a communal “Yes” rather than “Amen.” He is also setting in motion a temptress, Julia (Quigley, who is topless within 5 minutes of her intro; gotta love it), to seduce the newcomers into the fold.

Paul and Shannon are joined by Reverend Kane (John Dunleavy), who is a Satanic cult expert. Perhaps the character was named after the Puritan Satanist hunter, Solomon Kane, from the Robert E. Howard novels. He, Paul, and Shannon, confront Donovan. Which leads me to some other questions: people are killed off by the cult for the smallest of infractions, even their own members (e.g., plans to leave town), so if confronted by this trio, why are they not immediately killed off like the others, especially after the newspaper first releases a story about the possibility of the local murders being cult-related? And when do students (Catherine) and especially teachers (Quigley) show up in high school (where they teach about Aleister Crowley and the positive side of Hitler) wearing belly-showing clothes and neck diving tops? Oh, yeah, in B-movies…

Linnea Quigley

When it is payback time, aka Act 3, the action naturally ramps up. I smiled how one scene near the end reflected an inverted version the beginning, something rare in most films.

The acting runs from quite decent, such as the two male leads, to just wooden and terrible (I will leave out the names), but that is to be expected in B-films. During the 1980s and ‘90s, indie films leaned towards bad acting, but that is also part of its charm, in my opinion.

There are hours upon hours of extras on this Blu-ray, so if you are interested in this kind of thing, you should be happy. It took me three days to watch everything, including these extras. First up is a full-length commentary with the director, Eric Swelstad, the lead actor Nick Baldasaere, cinematographer Scott Spears, and composer Jay Woelfel. I was amused that they brought up the sunglasses after dark; in fact, they mention a bunch of topics I did above, though I watched this after the film. While sometimes hard to tell who is talking, they are respectful, do not talk over each other, and tell interesting stories. It was better than I expected with this large a crowd. The second full lengther is with Tony Strauss of Weng’s Chop magazine. It a bit of a more academic deep dive into the culture before and after the film, info on the shoot itself, and histories of the actors. Often these dives are dull, but Strauss’ keeps it a bit light without losing any of his topic’s integrity. Some of what he says is reflective of the previous commentary, but even then, he adds more on top of it.

One of the noteworthy extras is the 2020 documentary featurette, “Deeper into the Darkness” (39 min). This is a well put-together collection of interviews of crew members and Baldasaere, mixed with archival footage both in front and behind the camera. Really fun to watch, actually. I really enjoyed the part about Quigley (though she is not interviewed), and the release has been dubbed “The Lost Linnea Quigley Film,” which I found amusing. There is also a trailer for “Deeper into the Darkness.” Meanwhile there are two Quigly-related shorts, a new interview called “Linnea Quigley Remembers” (6 min), and a very grainy, obviously VHS taped off the TV archival interview on the program “Close-up” (20 min). The newer one is just Linnea talking about her experience with the film and gets to plug her website. The older interview by Jane Sachs is from Columbus Fox Television, as Quigley not only talks about this film (under the title Fallen Angels), but her career and her animal rights work. All very cool, but I especially liked the many commercials between the two segments, including a promo for an upcoming Beach Boys special.

The complete, original Fallen Angels 1990 workprint (37 min), is also available with a commentary track with director Eric Swelstad, which is how I watched it. This was to be shown to promote investors. It has the timeclock on the bottom and is grainy, which helped me appreciate the modern, final cut. Unfortunately, there is no subtitles for this version, which is not surprising. It is extremely abbreviated, with some different moments here and there with more raw edits, including video noise between scenes. For the ritual scene, it is almost like a blooper reel as parts are shot over and over. Also, some scenes, such as a key Quigley bit, is shown both with and without nudity. A lot of the conversation is similar in information to the other commentaries. Naturally, there is a “The Making of Fallen Angels” (18 min), which is vintage newscast interviews with Quigley and Swelstad in a longer format. Again, it is a grainy and extremely “noisy” VHS copy, but it is interesting as a lot of the info is unique and not mentioned in the commentaries.

A 1990s abbreviated version of the film for distributor promotion, edited by someone out of the loop of the director, is Blood Church (13 min). Again, fuzzy, washed out, and time stamped. It is kinda weird and incoherent. A SFX featurette is “Heartland of Darkness: Filming [Name Redacted]’s Death” (3 min). I have removed the character’s name because it would be a spoiler. This was cool. Following, is an article scanned from Fantasm magazine, which I saw but did not read.

Then there is the behind-the-scenes image gallery, television spots, two versions of this film’s original coming attractions and the new one for this release, as well as a couple of Visual Vengeance trailers, and optional English subtitles.

On the physical side, there is a six-page liner notes booklet, a Limited Edition slipcase (first pressing only), a collectible Linnea Quigley folded mini-poster, a stick your own’ VHS sticker set, and a reversible sleeve featuring original Blood Church promotional art

For a low budget (appx $100,000) indie film (despite all the Pepsi placements), the practical SFX (with one exception) looks astoundingly good, and there is a lot of it. So is the nudity by more than one character.

Before this, I had never heard of Heartland of Darkness, which is no surprise considering it seen as a “lost film,” but despite my questions, I found it to be a very enjoyable vintage piece of its period.

IMBD listing HERE

Review: Witch Hunters

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2021
Images from the Internet

Witch Hunters (aka Witch Hunt)
Directed by Richard Chandler
Boston Film Family; Gravitas Ventures
74 minutes, 2016 / 2020
www.bostonfilmfamily.com/

This film started its brief and succinct life a few years ago under the title Witch Hunt, at 53 minutes in length. A few additional shots over the years and now it is the full length Witch Hunters. And that concludes the history lesson part of this review.

 There are multiple substories going on here that will, of course, merge at some point. First, there’s the brother and sister witch hunters (shades of 2013’s Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters) from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who wear Hells Angels-type leather jackets that denote their profession: Dominic Damarus (director Richard “Rick” Chandler, who played Hansel in James Balsamo’s The Litch in 2018) and mute Morrigan Ramsey (Carver Riot). They slaughter – usually via knives – witches.

Richard Chandler and Carver Riot

Second, there is the coven of said witches, led by a literally bloodthirsty piece of work (Lilith Astaroth, from the metal band Sorrowseed, who was in Nun of That and the recent Blood Pi), who is not given a name. This is more the traditional film coven, like you may see in Suspiria (1977), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), or The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), rather than the cutsie ones of The Craft (1996), for example. They huddle over their victims and sacrifice them…yes, using knives.

The third follows a priest and failed exorcist, Father James Costello (Graham King). He’s having an existential crisis, questioning his faith and his once suppressed gay sexuality. He is one mixed up dude. Lastly, there is Sheriff Tormada (Tony Ramos Wright), possibly named after Torquemada, who devised the worst of the Spanish Inquisition (as Mel Brooks said in 1981’s History of the World, Part I, “You can’t talk him outta anything!”); after all, the original tag line for the film is “The Inquisition Returns.” He is a murderous hedonist, riding on his power trip and will take down whomever he likes, just for the momentary thrill of it.

Lilith Astraroth and her Cult

Religion as supernatural has really become almost a sub-genre of late. I am not talking about the general possession type which has been a staple topic since The Exorcist (1973), but rather evil in religious forms, such as The Nun (2018), Beyond Hell (2020), or Red Letters (2020). Here we delve into the Satanic, more than, say, Satan proper. All of these tropes have been used multiple times in previous films, but combining them all successfully creates something new-ish. The question is whether or not it is successful, of course.

Every character suffers from affliction of at least a few of the seven deadly sins, especially those of the flesh. There is a lot of cleavage, nudity, and sex of various forms with numerous participants of either or both genders. For some reason, I find that the films out of New England, specifically between Boston (the environs where this was filmed) and Providence, RI, especially, have been recently focusing more on pan-sexual play, which I think is great. There is as much LGBTQ+ lust here as straight, as it should be. While that is refreshing, it’s definitely more sexual than sensual, as it’s more a meeting of bodies than hearts. There is also a lot of blood, with little gristle, which is also nice. Most of the SFX appears to be practical, rather than digital.

Graham King

What we are presented with is a series of set pieces, where storylines and characters sometimes overlaps like a Venn Diagram. While it loses some on story narration fluidity, what is positive about it is that not all the action is displaced into sections, such as nothing happening in the first act (usually about 20-30 minutes), little in the second act (about 40 minutes), and then crammed into the third act (the rest of the remaining time). Here, the sex, drugs and violence are nicely dispersed throughout. I can live with that.

In this story, the women are pure, be they good or evil; they know who they are and are consistent. The men, however, are contradictions, behaving in ways that betray (or believe it to be so) what they represent.

And when all the stories truly converge near the end, as they are wont to do in multi-line plots, the question of who will live to kill again and who will die to – err – not, is pretty well done, as the viewer is not totally sure who will come out on top. After all, in most straight, big budgeters, the flawed always fall, but in genre films, that is a gray area, thankfully.

For me, I can live with the questionably narrative storyline, seeing each set piece on its own as well as part of the zeitgeist, helped by the editing and cinematography. The “quality” of the image degrades a bit in the darker scenes, but that is common with some cameras (to paraphrase, “the fault…lies within the equipment, not in the director”).

That being said, the weakest point here is the acting, which is often wooden, or over-emoted. Some actors fare pretty well, but one in particular – and I won’t name names – was sincerely off the mark into overacting.

This may sound strange, but I feel like I was underserved on Father Costello’s story. The IMDB Storyline makes it sound like he was the central focus, but of the main characters – and there are at least five – his is one that feels like there could be a lot more. Perhaps a prequel, if not a sequel? I would watch that. Meanwhile, make sure you sit through the credits for this one.