DEADLY BLESSING: A Warm-Up For Bigger, Splashier Nightmares

A director’s best work might rep­re­sent the high points of their fil­mog­ra­phy but it doesn’t tell the full story of their work.  Sometimes, their less suc­cess­ful work can reveal a side that the hits don’t show.

A great exam­ple of a direc­tor that this rule suits is Wes Craven.  Deadly Blessing is one of his second-tier works, a film that he essen­tially did as a direc­tor for hire to stay in the film­mak­ing game.  In fact, it’s some­thing of a for­got­ten item in his back cat­a­log — but there is plenty here to intrigue the director’s fans as it shows him test­ing out ideas and visu­als that would pay off in his better-known work.  Its sto­ry­line also ref­er­ences his upbring­ing, mak­ing it per­sonal in a way that his more famous films aren’t.

Deadly Blessing offers the audi­ence a busy plot­line that mixes slasher and super­nat­ural motifs.  Martha (Maren Jensen) lives in iso­la­tion with her hus­band on a farm he inher­ited in a rural farm­ing com­mu­nity.  It is dom­i­nated by the mem­bers of a Hittite church, a repres­sive Christian sect that the hus­band was once part of.  Thus, they reject him and Martha as being in league with “the incubus,” an evil spirit of temp­ta­tion designed to lead true believ­ers to their deaths.  The only non-Hittites around are loopy divorcee Louisa (Lois Nettleton) and her rather creepy daugh­ter, Faith (Lisa Hartman).

The first shock hap­pens when the hus­band dies in a mys­te­ri­ous trac­tor mishap.  Martha’s big-city pals Vicky (Susan Buckner) and Lana (Sharon Stone) come out to take care of her and find trou­ble of their own. Vicky falls for a hand­some, reli­giously con­flicted Hittite named John (Jeff East) — and his desire to break away infu­ri­ates his father, Hittite leader Isaiah (Ernest Borgnine).  Lana finds her­self bedev­iled by creepy dreams involv­ing spi­ders that drive her to drink.  Worst of all, a mys­te­ri­ous, pos­si­bly super­nat­ural killer is pick­ing off the cast as he cir­cles his way to our heroines…

The script, which was orig­i­nally penned by Glenn Benest and Matthew Barr but rewrit­ten by Craven, is never dull but the story pulls in two dif­fer­ent direc­tions: one is an earnest, cau­tion­ary drama about the dan­gers of reli­gious repres­sion and the other is a shock-horror item.  The dra­matic mate­r­ial isn’t always a com­fort­able fit with the shocks and the hor­ror side has a hard time build­ing ten­sion because it has to accom­mo­date the dra­matic mate­r­ial.  Craven describes the shoot as hav­ing too many pro­duc­ers with too many con­flict­ing desires and the result­ing film reflects this con­fu­sion, par­tic­u­larly an obvi­ously tacked-on shock coda that Craven wasn’t happy with shooting.

However, that doesn’t mean Deadly Blessing isn’t worth watch­ing.  Craven uses his for-hire gig to develop his direct­ing style and the results show how he had devel­oped his craft beyond his early work.  His pac­ing is solid and he takes full advan­tage of the cin­e­matic pos­si­bil­i­ties offers by the film’s sus­pense set­pieces: a scene where Lana is tor­mented in a dark­ened barn by an unseen attacker is par­tic­u­larly well-orchestrated, build­ing ten­sion in a way that makes the audi­ence feel what is hap­pen­ing to the char­ac­ter.  Other high­lights in this area include a scene where a snake is slipped into Martha’s bath­tub and a skin-crawling moment involv­ing a spi­der, a ceil­ing and an open mouth (the lat­ter bit also inspired the film’s strik­ing poster art).

On a deeper level, any stu­dent of Craven’s work will notice him devel­op­ing ideas that would pay off later in A Nightmare On Elm Street.  For instance, the way dreams are used to tor­ment Lana’s char­ac­ter — and the way her dreams become inter­twined with her real­ity — hint at what would hap­pen to the teen pro­tag­o­nists in that later film.  More impor­tantly, the set­piece involv­ing the snake, Martha and the bath­tub is staged in a way that Craven would revisit for a sim­i­larly impor­tant shock in A Nightmare On Elm Street, right down to one cru­cial cam­era angle that sells the big shock.

It’s also worth not­ing that the reli­gious themes of the premise obvi­ously res­onated with Craven and it is reflected in how he han­dles the sub­plot involv­ing John, who is torn between filial/religious loy­alty and a desire to expe­ri­ence the world on its own terms (rep­re­sented by his poten­tial romance with Vicky).  Craven was brought up in a repres­sive Baptist com­mu­nity and it’s easy to see the John char­ac­ter as a sur­ro­gate for him.  The scenes involv­ing this char­ac­ter have a sur­pris­ing thought­ful­ness and sen­si­tiv­ity you wouldn’t expect from a hor­ror film.

Finally, Deadly Blessing ben­e­fits from the kind of resources that Craven had never had before in his films.  The bud­get allowed for a good cast: Borgnine steals many a scene with an intense, seri­ous per­for­mance as the fire-and-brimstone Hittite leader and Nettleson and Hartman bring plenty of energy to their “rural crazy” arche­types.  Better yet, the three hero­ines all do well: Jensen is sym­pa­thetic (and pho­to­genic) as the main hero­ine with Stone ham­ming it up in an early role as her jumpy pal and Buckner offer­ing an appeal­ing, spir­ited turn as the strongest and most inde­pen­dent of the trio.  It’s also worth not­ing that Craven reg­u­lar Michael Berryman does effec­tive work as a volatile, simple-minded mem­ber of the Hittites.

Similarly, the style of the film ben­e­fits from con­tri­bu­tion by qual­ity crafts­men: James Horner turns in a chilly, effec­tive Omen–esque score and Robert Jessup’s pho­tog­ra­phy cre­ates a strik­ing, Rockwell-esque “Americana” back­drop for the mayhem.

In short, Deadly Blessing fits into the mid­dle tier of Wes Craven’s work but his grow­ing sense of style and ambi­tious approach to his mate­r­ial make it well worth the watch for fans.  Hindsight reveals it was a worth­while step­ping stone for things to come.