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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - August 14th

"DEADLY BLESSING" released in 1981

When Martha (Maren Jensen) is visited by her two friends Lana Marcus (Sharon Stone) and Vicky Anderson (Susan Buckner), after the mysterious death of her husband Jim Schmidt (Douglas Barr), on her farm named 'Our Blessing', they are immediately startled by the neighboring rural community of Hittites (an  austere religious community), led by the sinister Isaiah Schmidt (Ernest Borgnine) who may know more about his son Jim's death than they realize in Wes Craven's Deadly Blessing.

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In an isolated rural community, Martha (Jensen) and Jim (Barr) live peacefully on their farm, 'Our Blessing'. One day, Jim excitedly hires the services of local midwife (and neighbor) Louisa Stohler (Lois Nettleton) and her daughter Faith (Lisa Hartman) when they realize Martha is pregnant.  That night, Jim searches in the barn after hearing strange noises from inside, but is murdered when a mysterious figure runs him over with his tractor, making it look like a mechanical accident. Martha's friends Lana (Stone) and Vicky (Buckner) visit Martha after Jim's funeral, where Martha explains about their other neighbors, the Hittites; a strict religious community led by Jim's father Isaiah Schmidt (Borgnine), that, as Martha explains, "makes the Amish look like swingers". The night after their arrival, Isaiah's other son William (Michael Berryman) is also killed outside 'Our Blessing' and the following day Isaiah visits Martha searching for him. Isaiah however only ends up insulting her by continuously calling her the "incubus". In the coming days, strange events start to occur; Jim's grave is desecrated, a snake is placed in a bathtub while Martha is bathing, and William's body is discovered strung up in her barn, prompting Martha to buy a gun for protection. When Vicky is also later killed, along with Isaiah's remaining son John (Jeff East), Martha and Vicky start to believe that the Incubus that Isaiah and the Hittites fear may in fact be very real, and has chosen Martha and Vicky as it's next victims!

Vicky Anderson: What's an incubus?
Martha Schmidt: It's some kind of demon that stalks the faithful in their sleep, or just comes and takes you like a beast!
Lana Marcus: Oh God...

Top:   Friends Martha (Maren Jenson) and Vicky (Sharon Stone) are

confronted by many strange things following the death of Martha's husband;

Above:   Vicky receives a "deadly blessing" from the Incubus!

After the success of the 1978 made-for-television movie Stranger in Our House (aka Summer of Fear) producers Max A. Keller and Micheline H. Keller approached director Wes Craven to again direct their next project, Deadly Blessing. Craven, who was a born into a strict Baptist household and attended conservative Christian Wheaton College, based the screenplay on a lot of own experiences from childhood. The creation of Amish-like Hittites came from co-screenwriter Glenn M. Benest after reading an article on the Amish in National Geographic. With the script in place, Craven cast Maren Jensen in the lead role of Martha (Deadly Blessing would be Jensen's last movie or television credit), and Sharon Stone in her first major acting role as Lana Marcus (Stone would actually have her acting coach on set throughout the entire shoot). Craven also cast Michael Berryman in the role of William Gluntz, making Deadly Blessing the second time Berryman had worked with Craven after The Hills Have Eyes (1978) (Craven would work with Berryman a further two times; Invitation to Hell (1984) and The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1984)). But it was Academy-Award winning actor Ernest Borgnine in the role of Isaiah Schmidt that actually intimidated the then relatively novice director, with Craven later comparing his work with Borgnine to John Carpenter's work with Donald Pleasance in the original Halloween, being the first "big name star" that either director had worked with and gave their career's a certain credibility.

[last lines]
Narrator: The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder.

Top:   Sect leader, Isaiah Schmidt (Ernest Borgnine) believes that

Martha has brought the Incubus down on them;

Above:   Just when Martha believes the nightmare is over...!

Deadly Blessing has since been well-known for its famous sequence where a spider drops into the mouth of Sharon Stone, but filming the sequence proved extremely difficult. Craven initially tried to persuade Stone to film the spider scene by holding the creature himself, but a still unconvinced Stone requested that its teeth be removed. Despite crew knowledge that this would make it incredibly difficult for the spider to feed, the operation was performed and Stone agreed to continue. Filming in Waxahachie, Texas also proved hazardous for Ernest Borgnine when he had a mishap on set, needing to be taken to the hospital to be treated for a head injury following an accident involving a horse and buggy. However, Borgnine returned to the set to continue acting in the film three days later. One of the biggest sources of contention on the production was how Deadly Blessing should end. Craven would later state the ending with the real incubus coming up out of the floor and dragging Martha down screaming was imposed on him by the producers, who wanted more a shock finale.

TRIVIA:   The idea for the snake in the bathtub came to Wes Craven in a dream.

Top:   Director Wes Craven in 1981

Universal, the primary distributor for Polygram-produced films at the time, chose not to pick up Deadly Blessing until January 22, 2013; it was instead released in theaters by United Artists and was the last United Artists films released in the Transamerica era before being acquired by MGM in the same year. Poorly received by critics, Time Out wrote, "Deadly Blessing isn't a very good movie, but it holds out distinct promise that Craven will soon be in the front rank of horror filmmakers", calling it "an excellent example of a mundane project elevated into quite a palatable genre movie by its director." AllMovie called the film ultimately disappointing, but wrote that it has "enough eccentricities and stylish flourishes to make it worthwhile for fans of vintage horror... [and] finds director Wes Craven in a transitional phase between his hard-hitting early work and his later commercial successes." In his review of the Shout! Factory Blu-ray Scott MacDonald of EuroCultAV.com wrote, "If Deadly Blessing does one thing very well it is to mix the psychological with the supernatural in horror to create something that is quite an interesting addition to Craven's repertoire. It isn't the missing masterpiece I was hoping from the film, but it is a certainly unique horror experience, and on that alone I can recommend the film."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   20%