PRIME EVIL (1988, d. Roberta Findlay)
Recently, my dear Scumbags, I watched a horror movie that I simply must tell you about. It deals with a woman who is haunted by dark secrets in her family history. It keeps her from enjoying everyday life, and she only begins to unravel more and more when a tragic death rocks her world. In her time of need, she brusquely pushes away those around her who would provide the help she really needs, and instead turns to spiritualism, only to realize once it’s far too late, and she’s burned all her bridges, that she has been an unwitting pawn in the machinations of a bloodthirsty demonic cult for her entire life, a sacrificial lamb destined for the abbatoir since birth. That movie, of course, is 1988’s Prime Evil. Wait, what movie did YOU think I was talking about?
Prime Evil was the final film to be directed by exploitation auteur Roberta Findlay. Her story is a fascinating one: alongside her husband Michael, she wrote and directed a number of sadomasochistic sexploitation films in the 1960s. Under the tutelage of George Weiss, who produced Ed Wood’s cross-dressing classic Glen or Glenda, the Findlays began spicing up their skin flicks with touches of seedy violence, essentially creating the “roughies” genre, alongside fellow New York City filmmakers Joe Sarno, Joseph P. Mawra, and Lou Campa. By the 1970s, the couple transitioned into making straight up slashers, including the super controversial 1976 feature Snuff, arguably an early example of found footage horror. The next year, Michael Findlay was tragically killed in a horrific helicopter crash on the roof of the Pan Am building. Roberta soldiered on, directing a number of genre classics on her own, including two in 1985 alone: Tenement and The Oracle. Prime Evil, unfortunately, is not a classic. In some regards, it is barely even a movie. Miss Findlay clearly had some lofty ambitions with this film, but attempted to execute them on a grindhouse, run and gun, down and dirty production. Because of this, Prime Evil is a fascinating failure, the type of film that works best when watched with like-minded friends, and preferably at some level of inebriation.
We open in a church in the 1300s, where some good ol’ terrible narration explains that the plague is in full effect, and the priests believe that it is God punishing those who aren’t holy enough, so a few priests were like, fuck this noise, we’re taking our talents to Hades. There’s a meeting with a bunch of priests, and the head priest is like, yo, Father Thomas, what’s with you, man? And Father Thomas is like, didn’t you hear the narration? I’m on Satan’s team now, God is wack. They converse about this, but Roberta Findlay must’ve not liked the dialogue, so the narrator comes back in to drown them out. Then the head priest is like, I’m gonna excommunicate you, Father Thomas, but Father Thomas is like, lol nope, and decapitates this head priest with a giant sword, and it’s awesome. Father Thomas is like, news flash bitches, I’m running this show, and I’m Satan Squad all day, so don’t get in my way. Some dork-ass priest is like oh noooooo! So Father Thomas awkwardly slashes him across the stomach with his sword, and the guy awkwardly falls down some stairs, and even the movie can’t stand to look at this, because it fades to black, mid-fall, like it’s embarrassed.
Cut to: present day Boston, though the film was obviously shot in New York City, to the point where nearly every synopsis I’ve read incorrectly says that the film takes place there. Anyway, an old priest dies while holding a weird amulet. A nun, Sister Angela, goes to the bishop and is like, hey bishop, I think Satanists killed that old priest, and I have a story about my mom being murdered by Satanists in Egypt or something, it’s kinda boring, Liam probably zoned out during this part. And shockingly enough, the bishop is like, yup, we know, it was totally a satanic cult, we just don’t know how to handle this pesky problem. So Sister Angela is like, hey, let me go undercover and infiltrate the cult and do nothing else until the final scene of the movie. The bishop is apprehensive for like five seconds, but then agrees, under the stipulation that Sister Angela must renounce her vows so she can do all sorts of evil cult stuff, which in this movie means smash a plaster crucifix with a hammer and burn her nun uniform. Umm, hail Satan?
Honestly, nothing about this cult makes much sense. They’re still lead by Father Thomas (whose last name, we find out, is Seton. GET IT?!?!) Members of the cult have to sacrifice a family member who is a virgin, and in exchange they get “13 years of immortality,” which is an oxymoron. That is not how immortality works! Why would you agree to some cockamamie plan where you have to renew your immortality clause or whatever every 13 years or start to age again? Is worshiping Satan like going to the DMV? Actually, that kinda makes sense.
So all of a sudden, this blonde lady is making out in a hallway with some dude who looks like Kevin Nealon. But wait, what? I thought Sister Angela was our main character? Is it now this lady? Anyway, she goes in and sees Alex, who is her job recruiter of some kind? Apparently blondie used to be a prostitute before she joined this like, temp agency? So Alex is like, hey, I got you a job interview at 2:30 tomorrow, it’s for a paralegal job…on Wall Street! To which blondie animatedly replies, “Wall Street?!?!” And I died a thousand tiny deaths.
Now we get to see blondie and Kevin Nealon hitchin’ a ride into the bone zone, Findlay style. But oh gosh, they’re interrupted by a homicidal maniac in a handyman’s uniform! Wait, what?! But fortunately, Kevin Nealon knows karate! WAIT, WHAT?!?! So he awkwardly does karate at this schlubby murderer for a minute, but then whoops, he still gets stabbed in the back, contorting his body like a Merce Cunningham dancer. Which is weird. So blondie runs down the stairs, before our killer catches up via a convenient jump cut, and knocks blondie out with some sort of tranquilizer. As he’s carrying her out of the building, some guy passes them and goes, “She have too much to drink?” To which our schlubby murderer replies, in a lifeless monotone, “Yes.” And the guy responds, “Have fun, man!” EWW EWW EWW EWW EWW EWW EWW EWW EWW.
Since every cut to a new scene in this movie feels like violent whiplash, all of a sudden we’re at a gym, and Alex is working out with her friend. This friend is the most obnoxious character I’ve seen in a movie in awhile. She yells all of her lines in an exaggerated Valley Girl accent like a Siobhan Fallon SNL character for no reason, grunts loudly while using the machines, is constantly shoving chips and other junk food down her throat, and only wants to talk about sexytimes. She asks Alex if her boyfriend, Bill, is any good in bed, which really upsets Alex for some reason, and they get into a fight, which ends with the friend yelling the amazing line, “WHY DON’T YA WANNA GET POKED?!?!”
Suddenly, Alex and Bill are in the back of a horse-drawn carriage, riding through the part of Boston that looks just like Central Park. Without being prompted, Alex begins to go into excruciating detail as to why she don’t wanna get poked. Turns out, when she was 6 years old, her father sold her to a ring of child pornographers before mysteriously disappearing, yup, the movie really goes THERE. Clearly and understandably, she’s still deeply traumatized by all of this, which is why she and Bill still haven’t had sex despite the fact that they’re ENGAGED. But then, in basically the next scene, she’s hanging out with her rich lush of a mother, and she’s like, hey, come with me to Grandpa’s Christmas party, and the mom is rightfully like, you mean the father of the man who sold my daughter into sexual slavery as a child? Yeah, no thanks, I never wanna see anyone in that family ever again. GOOD IDEA, LUSH MOM! But Alex is like, oh c’mon, Grandpa is nice.
Plot twist: Grandpa ISN’T nice! In fact, Grandpa is a Satanist, and he’s going to sacrifice Alex at their next ceremony in order to renew that bullshit immortality contract. Apparently last time he offered up his son, Alex’s father, and that’s why he ain’t around no more. But, didn’t it have to be a virgin who was sacrificed? Umm, don’t worry about it. Father Thomas has the amazing line, “You’re being very flippant for a man about to sacrifice his granddaughter.” But Grandpa doesn’t just want to do that, he wants to overthrow Father Thomas and rule the world, or something, basically it’s all talk and nothing ever comes of it.
OK, this is taking forever, because something batshit insane happens every two minutes in this movie, so I’m gonna ramp it up a bit: Alex meets Father Thomas and begins to fall under his Satanic influence, thanks to his handsome eyes and Shatneresque line delivery. This rightfully upsets Bill, but Alex screams in his face every time he brings up how inappropriate this PRIEST acts around her. Dude, Bill, my guy, between the crazy family and the lustful priest and the no sex, why would you marry this woman?! The Satanists basically waterboard Alex’s lush mom with alcohol, which somehow Alex doesn’t hear despite being right next door to it happening. She moves in with Grandpa. Father Thomas makes out with her after the funeral, which, holy shit! Schlubby murderer abducts more ladies, including a hooker whom he basically reverse psychologies into roofying herself (in a scene set to Seinfeld style slap bass, no less!), a wise-cracking teen prostitute character they introduce solely to be abducted, and Alex’s slutty gym rat snack friend. Turns out schlubby murderer is doing all this because he wants to be a part of the Satanic cult, but Father Thomas is like, lol bro you may hang with us, but you’ll never be ONE of us, because you’re a creep and no one likes you. Somehow Bill starts to figure out that Father Thomas is behind all this murdering and Satanic chicanery, and goes to confront him, but whoops, schlubby murderer throws him off a roof. At least we get a pretty good bad dummy shot out of it!
At this point, you may be asking yourself, is there a bumbling police detective in this movie? Well of course there is! I think his name is Dan and he’s got a mustache! He’s investigating the disappearance of blondie from the beginning, and gets wrapped up in all this drama with Alex’s family because of it. Based on one phone conversation with Bill shortly before he’s murderized, he somehow puts together the entire satanic plot, including knowing that it’s going to happen during the winter solstice on December 21st, which, whatever, the movie has to end somehow, right? So Mustache Dan and his partner go to arrest Father Thomas, and during their confrontation, Mustache Dan utters what is actually the best line in the entire movie, a line that puts even “WHY DON’T YA WANNA GET POKED?!” to shame. Get ready for it...
“Cut the crap, fart breath!”
Slow clap for that. Slow clap. Brilliant.
Finally, the sacrificial ceremony can begin! Alex is all loopy under Father Thomas’s sexy spell, everyone has gathered in their finest Sunn O))) robes. Even Satan himself is there, and you guys, Satan in this movie is played by a tiny adorable puppet. It looks like if the baby from Eraserhead had bat wings and was made of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. It is terrible and charming. Father Thomas begins the proceedings by introducing everyone to blondie, slutty gym rat snack friend, and wise-cracking teen prostitute. He’s like, these ladies are the brides of Satan now, so go ahead and show the audience dem titties! Naturally, they oblige. Suddenly, we see Sister Angela standing in the corner, and remember that she’s in the movie. Grandpa is ready to sacrifice Alex, and all the satanists begin to awkwardly grind on each other. Schlubby murderer wants in on some of them libations of the flesh, and grabs Sister Angela. Sister Angela is like nope, I didn’t sign up for THIS shit, and slashes his throat. Then she stabs Grandpa to death, before he can sacrifice Alex. Then, oh my gosh, she stabs the tiny adorable Satan puppet to death! RIP Satan puppet! All of the occultists begin to age rapidly and turn into corpses, like a less impressive version of the climax of The Devil’s Rain. Father Thomas runs up some stairs, yelling “You’ve won this time!” as if he’s a goddamn Scooby-Doo villain. All of the women are safe, and Sister Angela has some dumb line that includes the phrase “prime evil” but who cares.
The movie ends with a real estate agent lady showing a church to some guy, which is not how churches work I don’t think, and we’re supposed to not know who this guy is even though it’s glaringly obvious, and of course it’s Father Thomas, and he’s like, why don’t we check out the basement, mwahahahaha! And then the camera zooms in on him twice, just to really make sure we all get it. But wait, how can you restart the cult if Satan has been stabbed to death? How are you not a rotting pile of bones now that Satan has been stabbed to death? Get outta here with this ending!
Now, I wanna give this movie a fair shake. Yes, it is bonkers. Yes, the dialogue and the acting are both laughable. Yes, the camerawork and the editing are shoddy. Yes, the kills are mostly dull. But as I was making my way through the movie, trying desperately to make heads or tails of the madness unfolding onscreen, I suddenly began to think to myself…did Roberta Findlay secretly make a film about abuse?
Alex, the main character, is defined by the trauma of her childhood. It rules her everyday life, it keeps her from enjoying meaningful friendships and an intimate relationship with her boyfriend. However, despite all of this, she still lets herself be groomed for further abuse by Father Thomas, and remains oblivious to the fact that she is being groomed until it is nearly too late. That really struck me. Was this intentional on Roberta Findlay’s part? Was she trying to make a statement about how women can become complicit in the machinations of their abusers? Would I have thought of this if the film wasn’t directed by a woman? Am I giving Prime Evil too much credit, seeing a feminist message in a blood n’ boobs cheapie? Either way, there’s no denying that, whether it’s amassing an impressive oeuvre of sleazy underground classics, or infiltrating a weirdly bureaucratic Satanic cult, sisters are doing it for themselves.
