October Horror Movie Challenge: Prime Evil (1988)

Here we are at the end of it all. 

Prime Evil (1988)

Prime Evil is directed by Roberta Findlay and concerns an ancient sect of Satan-worshipping monks who have survived into modern-day New York through a bargain involving human sacrifice. There is an undercover nun, an upcoming sacrifice, a lot of talk about Satan, and enough low-budget occult weirdness to make sure nobody mistakes this for subtle horror.

The plot details don't hold my interest as much as the movie’s place in the decade. It is as near to pure late-1980s Satanic Panic horror as one can get. The Devil is no metaphor here, and the cultists are not some misunderstood lot of occultists; they are in fact worshipping Satan and putting into practice centuries-old traditions of sacrifice. And yet this ancient evil is at work in contemporary New York. In that respect, Prime Evil is one more instance of the theme I have been coming across all month: horror comes home. Sure, NYC is not a small town, but it is someone's hometown; in fact, 8.6 million someones.

That is probably my biggest takeaway from this year's October marathon. I set out to find some small-town horror from 1985 to 1986 and found something of a wider scope. Time and again the horror has come home, making its way into the houses, schools, malls, hospitals, and neighborhoods. At times it has been there for generations; at other times it was let in by accident. Or, as in Prime Evil, an age-old evil has just taken root in the modern world.

I also appreciate how completely sincere movies like this could be about their supernatural premises. There is no point in trying to offer a psychological reading of Satanism or make of the cult a complex social metaphor. The monks made a deal with the Devil, and that is the end of it.

Is Prime Evil any good? Not really. It is cheap and uneven and at times confusing without being as wild as you might expect from the premise. The pacing, the performances and the story have drawn their share of criticism in reviews both then and now. But it has a certain 1980s low-budget earnestness I have grown to like in the course of this marathon. Someone had a tale of immortal Satanic monks in New York and thought that was reason enough to put a film together.

And really, that is part of what I have enjoyed about revisiting this decade.

The 1980s were not afraid to be ridiculous.

They were not afraid to mix old folklore, religious horror, slashers, science fiction, teenage drama, heavy metal, and whatever else happened to be lying around.

Sometimes the results were classics, some were terrible, and some, many in fact, were pure 80s fun.

Either way, I had a lot of fun.

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