DEADLY BLESSING (1981)

After the success of The Hills Have Eyes, Wes Craven truly began to gain ground as a mainstream Hollywood filmmaker. He  acquired union membership of the Director's Guild of America by directing a well received made for TV feature called A Stranger In Our House, televised on Halloween 1978, and starring Linda Blair who shot to fame as the possessed Regan in The Exorcist (1973). He then developed the screenplay of First Blood years before it was changed when Sylvester Stallone became attached to it, and Marimba, a Colombian drug-trafficking thriller starring Michael Berryman from The Hills have Eyes that later came out as Cut and Run in 1985 helmed by Ruggero Cannibal Holocaust Deodato.
The next property that he actually brought to fruition was an effective Southern Gothic chiller titled Deadly Blessing (1981) made through Polygram with major distribution by United Artists. He rose to the occasion, crafting a cross between Friday The 13th and Witness and despite his protestations in interviews it deals with themes of religious repression, mistrust and fear of the unknown that must surely have reared up from his childhood. It's the story of three female secular friends who fall foul of a stern local god-fearing Hittite community - "They make the Amish look like swingers" we are warned - ruled with a rod of birch in fine, Abe Lincoln-bearded style by Ernest Borgnine, while a mysterious serial killer begins targeting the cultists.
The catalyst is the death of Martha (Maren Jensen)'s former Hittite husband Jim (Howie Munson in TV's The Fall Guy). They had always borne the brunt of hostility from the cult after their relationship caused Jim to be excommunicated. Even worse, he bears the weight of his tractor crushing him to death in their barn. After the funeral, Martha's two best friends arrive to share her grief and ultimately her terror as they are repeatedly attacked by the unknown foe as well. Susan Buckner is the most convincing of the trio as the morally footloose but feisty Vicky. Sharon Stone is less memorable in her first speaking role as Lana, at times underplaying the typical horror movie blonde beauty in jeopardy to the point of virtual emptiness. There were a few years of languishing in low ranked movies for her before she started to command strongly in Verhoeven's Total Recall (1990).
Comparisons with Friday The 13th are not only evident, but probably deliberate since this came out a year after Craven's former producer Sean S. Cunningham's paradigm-shifting slasher provoked a wave of genre imitators. Deadly Blessing shares the former's stalk and slash set-ups and the revelation of ostensibly female rather than male murderers (two in fact), but to be fair the similarities should end there. The set-pieces here are handled with much more style and unnerving pay-offs, such as the snake released into Martha's bath (echoed later in Heather Langenkamp's sudsy bath-time doze encounter with Freddy Kreuger in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and the shiver-inducing tarantula dropped into Stone's mouth during a dream sequence - only filmed after Stone insisted on its fangs being removed. Craven's third feature is structured unusually: the outsiders (dubbed 'the incubus' with relish by Borgnine's Isiah Schmidt) survive repeated homicidal attacks for the first two acts, whilst it is the Hittite members who are hit. Michael Berryman's man-child William is dispatched like Jim, only this time stabbed to death by the enigmatic killer. It's not until Vicky goes on an illicit date with tempted formerly-betrothed John Schmidt (Jeff East) that she is blown up in her car after he is murdered. Could this be that pesky 'only the sinful die' retribution that was emerging in eighties slasher movies? Well, motivations are muddied further when ultimately the killer's identities are revealed as mother and 'daughter' Louisa and Faith (Lisa Hartman), the latter of whom is uncovered as a man - essentially the male incubus predator Isaiah feared all along. As a result, this unexpectedly vindicates his obsessive puritanism, a charitable moment to offset any claims that Craven was forever critical of fundamentalist religion.
Happily, the ending rescues such unravelling nuttiness with a superbly staged shock punch that also betters Cunningham's progenitor in how to finish a horror movie. After Martha assures Lana she will be fine on her own, she is terrified by the apparition of a zombified transparent Jim staggering toward her (sporting Dawn of the Dead style grey pancake face makeup), whispering "Beware the Incubus". She is given no time to heed this though as suddenly an immense black shape erupts through the floorboards and engulfs her, dragging her to a presumed Hell.
Deadly Blessing benefits as well from a lovely rich theme tune by acclaimed composer James Horner. Overall, it begins to bridge the gap between Craven's indie hillbilly slasher films and his path to two stunning commercial megabucks franchises. There were however to be two more lesser ranking projects before fame and fortune beckoned...