Obviously inspired by Carrie (which is quite evident in the "kill them all" finale) this has cult favourite actor Clint ("Yes, I'm Ron's brother") Howard in a rare starring role as the constantly picked-on orphan Stanley Coopersmith who stumbles upon a Satanic tome while cleaning out the basement of the church at the Military academy he's attending.

From there he gets pushed further and further to the edge (with the usual bully tactics of constant ribbing, pushing, and getting him in trouble for things he didn't do - and even killing his cute puppy!) and he's soon using a school computer to translate the book only to end-up getting possessed by Esteban (a Satanist cast out during the Spanish Inquistion) which leads to plenty of gory mayhem in the last fifteen minutes.

While the movie is pretty long-winded to get to the finale it still manages to stay watchable thanks to Howard's decent performance in the lead, a few scattered moments of bloodletting (like the horrible looking killer attack pigs and a cool "neck twist" moment), and some unintentionally cheesy elements (gotta dig those completely dated computer graphics!).

But really it's the finale you want to stick around for as this takes Carrie's prom finish, places it in a church, and has Howard beheading people with a sword. It's here that all the uncut gore promised on the DVD box comes into play and the movie slings a lot more blood than you'd expect for a 1981 film - in fact the finale is so bloodsoaked and chaotic is gives what's essentially a ** movie and extra half-a-star.

Main bully Don Stark would go on to play a regular character on surprise sitcom hit, That 70's Show (he plays Donna's father). Review based on uncut version. (Chris Hartley, 10/14/04)

Directed By: Eric Weston.
Written By: Joseph Garofalo, Eric Weston.

Starring: Clint Howard, R.G. Armstrong, Joseph Cortese, Claude Earl Jones.