Excellent, a Must See

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

This film is one of the best to trade on the hysteria and insanity of a religious cult that I've seen. From the cheesy opening which has scenes of a woman singing a hymn to the lord inter cut with a woman being stalked by a murderer, you know you're in for one hell of a ride. This is a low budget British production which concentrates on characters and their relationships which make it a stronger film than it might otherwise have been had a higher budget been available.Patrick Magee hams for all he's worth as a psychotic preacher who will stop at nothing to recruit prospective followers and then control them with a grip of iron. You take drugs or medication? You'll be cast out. Magee gives an absolutely frenzied performance and is a hoot whenever he's on screen. A few other actors like LUST FOR A VAMPIRE's Suzanna Leigh pop up here and there but this is a film mainly populated by unknowns who acquit themselves well with the material - especially the actor playing the tormented Kenny, Tony Beckley.The real horror comes from a series of violent murders being committed by an pervert. These pre-date and yet are remarkably similar to the later stalk-and-slash sequences in slasher epics which would swamp video shelves throughout the '80s. Each murder involves a woman who usually ends up minus most of her clothes, yes there's plenty of gratuitous nudity stirred into the brew. The killer is a man whose upbringing by the cult has left him mentally scarred and unable to have a normal relationship with a woman. So instead he goes out and slays anybody in the least bit sexual or attractive. THE FIEND is a totally demented film from start to finish and one that uncannily accesses human insanity and brings it to the screen in a believable way. Quite disturbing, quite rare, and well worth your time.

This has a very poor average rating from IMDb but don't let that put you off this forgotten gem of 1970s British exploitation cinema . It's certainly one of the most deranged movies I've seen in a long time and it'll take me a long time to forget it . It's interesting the screenwriter is called Brian Comport but one can't help thinking it's a word play on " Brain Compost " and is in fact a pen name for either Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens and the film sets out its amusingly tasteless stall right from the very start The film opens in a small church hall where we see a congregation listening to a fire and hell preacher whilst he carries out a baptism and you won't confuse this sequence with The God Channel " Sing my brethren sing " And indeed a miracle does indeed take place . Despite there only being a solitary church organ in the hall, trumpets , percussion instruments and electric guitars are heard as the lead singer mouths words to an entirely different song while the congregation have epileptic fits and terminal attacks of Tourette's syndrome . Tne momentum is kept up as after the title sequence we're treated to a British version of BATMAN where a security guard gets in to a punch up with a couple of villains . Just a pity the director forgot to put in the ZAP ! POW ! OUCH ! captions onto the screen . Luckily the security guard is rescued by the rozzers who tell him he's lucky the villains were only carrying screwdrivers ! Let me get this straight - if you're mugged by a couple of bad guys armed with screwdrivers you should be thankful that they're not carrying dangerous weapons ? well that's put my mind at rest Some people might claim it's offensive the way this film portrays Christians but I disagree . It's religion itself that's the target of THE FIEND . To quote Professor Steven Weinberg " In a secular world good people would do good things and bad people would do bad things but in order for good people to do bad things only religion must be involved . THE FIEND being rabid exploitation cinema doesn't concern itself with such cerebral philosophy but still rightly portrays religion as the worst thing ever invented by the human species and if anyone feels offended by its portrayal of Christianity would the same person feel offended if the story was set in Pakistan or Afghanistan where a student of a Madrasa school goes around killing infidels ?That said 1971 was a different world when this film was produced and religion did in fact find a new window of bad opportunity with new age thinking . Christianity was simply an old , boring dying religion and people handing out pamphlets and preaching damnation if sinners didn't repent would still have found a politely indifferent audience . Imagine how this modified scene from the film would look today in the present moral zietgeist as Kenny knocks on the door of a teenage schoolgirl " Is your mother in " " No . Why ? " I'm from the BBC "

This movie is boring because the story proceeds so painfully slowly, the director presumably trying (though failing) to induce a slow crescendo of menace. It is frightening not because of the few brief glimpses of violent crime or its result, but because we know that all too many simple minded (or just plain stupid) people in the real world are capable of falling into the clutches of the sort of nasty, egotistical, sadistic bully, totally self-absorbed in his delusion of moral rectitude and continually playing the puritanical guilt card with his half-witted followrs, that is the Minister played so effectively here by Patrick Magee; and that there are all too many instances (though, thankfully, several orders of magnitude fewer than the numbers of the stupid and simple minded) of children growing up in the warped, hyper-pious but actually vicious atmosphere created in families and communities where such ministers of so-called religion and their equally nasty followers rule the roost, who grow up so mentally disturbed that they eventually do terrible things.However, here the point is made so slowly that it takes much patience to sit through it; I imagine that it made no major moral impact on society when it appeared and that it has has been all but forgotten in the 36 years since. Given how much has come to light during those 36 years of the evils I refer to, one could perhaps claim that the film was in some small way prescient like Cassandra; however there were enough signs before, just not the instant media coverage thereof that there would be in the 21st century. All too many people follow religions with all too much blind zeal nowadays as before, and probably as always since the dawn of civilization. Unfortunately this movie will not be seen by enough people to influence that doom-laden trend. The sort of people about which this movie warns us are probably just the sort of people who believe that to watch movies at all is immoral!

A truly dreadful film, seen during the night on BBC2, but glad I saw it! A fairly comprehensive anti-religion film... anyone who comes into contact with it becomes maniacs! Superb! Notable for yet another Patrick Magee scenery-chewing exercise, a host of unknown actors who remained unknown, and a truly jaw dropping series of appalling songs, sung by the "Shirley Bassey" Stars in their Eyes winner, Maxine Barrie (in her younger days!). Poor dear had to wait over 20 years for public recognition. If I were her, I'd buy all the prints and burn them! Definitely a B-movie for showing in a double bill with some cheapo Hammer concoction, but unintentionally funny in places.