On November 11, 1989, legendary drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs presented – after a comedic routine / rant about the disturbing pregnancy of his friend “Ugly on a Stick” – a movie that he simply referred to as “a turkey,” the 1988 direct-to-video horror film Bloodspell. While Joe Bob didn’t find that it had many redeeming qualities and didn’t have much to say about it, as far as I’m concerned, he gave the viewers of his The Movie Channel show Joe Bob’s Drive-in Theater a wonderful gift that night. I’m sure most viewers did agree with his assessment that Bloodspell is a turkey... but there were also viewers like me that would have had an absolute blast watching this movie play out. I just wish I had caught it for the first time during that 1989 Movie Channel airing instead of catching up with it 35 years later.
Also known as The Boy from Hell, this movie was executive produced by Jerry Feifer, the producer responsible for bringing the Witchcraft franchise into the world – and that tells you all you need to know about the movie’s production values, because it looks and feels exactly like the early Witchcraft movies, just without any of the sex scenes. Directed by Deryn Warren from a script by Jerry Daly (a.k.a. Gerry Daly), who would go on to write Witchcraft III: The Kiss of Death and the Feifer production Crystal Force, this one is set in and around a bizarre place called the St. Boniface Evaluation Center, where teenagers with deep emotional problems are brought for therapy sessions and mental evaluations as they near graduation. The “kids” in this place may be teenagers, but the actors hired to play them look like they were pushing 30 and they behave like they’re in kindergarten.
Our hero is the high-strung Charlie, played by 26-year-old Aarin Teich. He has been in the evaluation center for around a month, which is about as long as any kid ever stays there, when a new student / patient is enrolled. That’s Daniel (Anthony Jenkins), whose mother has brought him to St. Boniface not because he has emotional issues, but because his father Luther (John Reno), who deserted his family when Daniel was little, is now believed to be coming after his son, and his mother wants to hide him away.
The same night that Daniel is left at St. Boniface, Luther catches up with his mother and murders her while displaying superhuman strength and surviving injuries that would kill a normal person. It’s clear that something supernatural is going on here, and Luther says that Daniel is the “seed to my rejuvenation.” The idea is that Luther is going to possess Daniel and take full control of his youthful body on his 18th birthday, which is right around the corner. You might think the movie would deal with Luther trying to find Daniel for most of the running time, building up to a climactic confrontation between evil father and frightened son... but that’s not how it plays out. Luther has located Daniel within the first 20 minutes and merges his body into his son’s, mostly taking control of him – it just won’t be full control until the night of the kid’s birthday.
So the Luther-possessed Daniel spends the movie interacting with the others at St. Boniface, which include Charlie, “lady of the house” (she doesn’t like to be called the “house mother”) Jenny (Twink Caplan, under the name Theodora Louise); a group of teenagers that includes Debbie (Alexandra Kennedy) Joe (Christopher G. Venuti), Georgie (Kimble Jemison), Delores (Jaqueline Coon), Peggy (Heather Green), and Claudia (Tia Lachelle); psychologist Dr. Nelson (Douglas Vale), and live-in guidance counselor Tony Montana (Edward Dloughy). All of the teens are highly immature and most of them like to spend their time bullying Charlie – but when Charlie notices that Daniel is using telekinetic powers to cause harm to the other kids, he gets freaked out and starts trying to find a way to put an end to Daniel’s evil behavior.
Things get even more intense for Charlie when Daniel takes an interest in the girl he has a crush on, Debbie. Who will occasionally let Charlie hang out with her, as long as he promises not to talk too much. (A promise he never seems to be able to keep.) Charlie will do whatever it takes to save Debbie.
What makes Bloodspell so entertaining to watch, what qualifies it as a “so bad it’s good” gem that fans of bad movies really need to see, is how bad the writing and acting are. The set-up is interesting enough for a horror movie plot, but the dialogue is laughable and the behavior of the characters is often ridiculous. Aarin Teich is the most entertaining cast member to watch because Charlie has this problem where he loses control of himself when he gets upset – and he gets upset a lot, giving the audience the chance to watch Teich give intense, hilarious, over-the-top reactions to a variety of situations.
I also have to note that this is one of the most religious horror movies you could ever hope to see, because in the final moments one of the characters prays to God to save them from this terrifying situation – and God immediately answers the prayer! I won’t say just what happens, but the villain is defeated by divine intervention.
Bloodspell / The Boy from Hell is a lot of fun. If you enjoy watching bad movies, you have to seek this one out, because it provides a lot of laughs. It doesn’t even need the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment to be funny, the moments, dialogue, and line deliveries are so absurd on their own. Blog contributor Priscilla isn’t generally as entertained by bad movies as I am, but we watched this one together on June 1, 2024 and had so much fun that we decided we’re going to make it a tradition: we’re going to watch Bloodspell on June 1st every year.
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