Why so much hype?

A Masterpiece!

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Post-Carrie, we've seen so many films where people turn to the Devil to help them fit in or fight back against bullies. But let's face it — when you dress up Carrie White or Sissy Spacek or Chloë Grace Moretz, they end up being attractive. But Clint Howard? There's really no dressing up Clint.Don't get me wrong. I love the man and his many, many contributions to film (Balok from the Star Trek TV series, Carnosaur, Apollo 13, Rock 'n Roll High School and so much more). But you can totally see how he fits his role as Stanley Coopersmith in this movie.Evilspeak starts in the past, where Satanist Father Esteban (Richard Moll, who ends up in these reviews a lot, thanks to films like The Nightmare Never Ends and The Dungeonmaster) and his followers are exiled from Spain and denied the grace of God, unless they renounce Satan and his evil ways. We wouldn't have a movie if they gave in, right?Fast forward to the 80's. Stanley Coopersmith is an orphan, a poor kid who has been allowed into a military school alongside the children of some of the nation's richest and most powerful people. Everybody — including the teachers — pretty much use Stanley like a punching bag. While cleaning the church cellar, he finds Father Esteban's room, which is filled with black magic books and a diary. Stanley uses his 1981 computer skills to translate the book and learn more about Esteban. My words will not translate how great Stanley's Apple II's computing power is.The next morning, Stanley's classmates tie up his clothes and unplug his alarm clock, which leads him to be punished. As he cleans the stables, the school secretary finds Esteban's diary. As she plays with the jewel's on the cover, pigs attack Stanley. He returns to his room to find all of his belongings destroyed and his book gone.Sick of running out of computer time, Stanley steals a computer and sets it up in the basement. He's only missing a few ingredients — human blood and a consecrated host.That evening, the cook takes pity on Stanley and gives him Fred, aRead more at bandsaboutmovies.com/2017/10/19/evilspeak-1981/

Skip this one; it's not even campy enough for laughs. You get a 75 minute bore-fest, followed by 5 minutes of carnage with some of the effects so bad (like Clint Howard having a bad hair day as he hovers on visible wires) you wonder just how minuscule WAS the budget for this cheapie. When I saw "Evilspeak" in the theater in 1981, I hadn't noticed Clint Howard in anything since TV's "Gentle Ben" a decade before, when he was about 5. And (come to think of it) I haven't noticed him in much since, except bit parts in his big bro Ron's movies. Well, since he had to "carry" the entire movie on his limited acting skills, it's no wonder. And as for summoning up a demon on that laughable, stone-age computer... all I can say is "Estevan" must be a real low-grade demon, indeed! Makes even "Pazuzu" of "Exorcist II: The Heretic" look menacing and scary.

Following in Carrie White's footsteps, meek military academy student Stanley Coopersmith (Clint Howard) wreaks bloody revenge on the bullies who are making his life a misery. After discovering an old Satanic tome in the basement of the academy's chapel, he uses a school computer to translate the text within. By reciting these words, and with the computer serving as a portal for demonic forces, Coopersmith is able to transform himself into a freaky, floating 'angel of death' and mercilessly hunt down his tormentors.One of the better titles to be condemned as a video nasty in the 80s, Evilspeak is actually fairly tame viewing for much of it's running time, giving Daily Mail readers and their ilk hardly anything to get het up about until the film almost reaches the hour mark; this time is spent getting the audience to fully empathise with poor old Stanley, who is taunted, beaten, and humiliated by his peers, and treated unfairly by the staff at the academy. After that, though, it's splatter time!Barring a brief decapitation in the pre-credits sequence, the film's first juicy moment arrives when Coopersmith's computer twists the head of a drunken would-be rapist Sarge (R.G. Armstrong) until it is facing backwards; soon after that, there's an even gorier scene in which tarty secretary Miss Friedemeyer (Lynn Hancock) is gored to death by pigs whilst taking a shower (we even get a shot of the hungry hogs yanking out her intestines).Director Eric Weston briefly takes time out from the nastiness for a delightfully tacky beauty pageant in which all of the contestants are voluptuous teenagers in teeny bikinis (Suzy is sweet sixteen and wants to be a body stocking model, informs the academy's lecherous coach), before giving Coopersmith the final impetus to unleash hell on his tormentors: his pet dog is killed by head bully Bubba!Boiling with rage, Stanley gets the human blood he requires to complete his ritual (by impaling one of his teachers on a chandelier), traps his wicked classmates in the academy's chapel, and proceeds to teach them all a lesson by hacking at them with a huge sword. Skulls are crushed, heads are lopped off, blood gushes freely, and the pigs make another appearance to help Stanley deal with any stragglers.With its efficient direction from Weston, chilling Omen-style soundtrack, over-the-top splatter, gratuitous teenage eye-candy, bloody shower scene, fiery climax, and enthusiastic performances from all involved, Evilspeak is a solid piece of trashy 80s horror fun.7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

This is one of those guilty pleasures. The budget is low, effects are outdated, story is cheesy, and the acting... well actually the acting isn't so bad in this. Clint Howard does a great job as the out of shape abused nerd that just happens to be in a Military School. Don't ask me why he of all people would be there in the first place, it's best it you don't try and poke at the plot holes, or things come apart pretty quickly.So this movie follows a simple basic formula, people abuse nerd, nerd finds satanic book, nerd becomes possessed, nerd slaughters those who did him wrong. It's that straight forward.The most enjoyable scene in the film for a variety of reasons is when the greedy secretary Miss Friedemeyer who stole Stanley's book because she wanted the jewel pentagram from the cover goes home and tries to pry it off but can't. So when she runs into a dead end with that she then strips and has a nice shower scene for the audience(I didn't complain). While she's showering she hears a noise, the first time she shakes it off as if it was nothing, the second time she gets out of the shower to investigate. When she opens the bathroom door to see what the noise is she's attacked but a pack of wild bores(pigs). She desperately flees to the bathtub with no avail. The bores attack her, ripping her apart, and thus eat her alive. The final shot of Miss Friedemeyer is when the bores flip her dead body out of the tub, and tear out her intestines.This movie is a cheap, campy, cheesy horror flick. It's good to watch on a B-Horror film night, or when your bored and you have nothing better to do. Normally I'd give this film a 5/10, but the Miss Friedemeyer death sequence made me take it up a notch to 6/10.