(1980)
Dir - Gabrielle Beaumont
Overall: MEH
The non-television, full-length debut from Gabrielle Beaumont, The Godsend follows a long tradition of evil child movies such as The Bad Seed, Village of the Damned, or most obviously The Omen. Based off of the novel of the same name by Bernard Taylor, the fact that no one believes for a solitary second that the innocent looking, platinum blonde demon brat is the one causing any mischief whatsoever for so long is rather ridiculous and annoying. Considering she was birthed in their house by a creepy, random woman who then immediately disappeared to begin with, (Angela Pleasence looking as unsettling as ever), these dipshit parents just blame whatever other child was around. They also continue to leave all of them unsupervised on the regular, even after more than one of them begins dropping like flies when said evil, adopted spawn is always around when things go south. You would think that the death of just a single offspring would be enough to turn even the most inept parents into helicopter ones, but that is where this story proves you wrong. With any sympathy let alone plausibility for the central characters null and void then, the movie laboriously struggles with its own flawed lack of logic for most of its running time. It is miserable and stupid, about all there is to it really.
(1985)
Dir - Franc Roddam
Overall: GOOD
Sometimes it is nice just to have a, well, nice ending. This ambitious, off-shoot adaptation, (or continuation more accurately), of Mary Shelley's landmark novel Frankenstein picks up near the end of the book and presents a remarkably different chain of events than what took place not only in the original, written work, but also every film version since. It is so different in fact that it pulls of the tricky feat of standing on its own amongst the well-cinematized source material. Taken on its own grounds as it should be then, Franc Roddam's The Bride is only a slightly flawed film with redeemable qualities in spades. For one, the presentation of the Monster, (a heavily made-up Clancy Brown), is given substantial screen time and leans almost entirely into his gentle, misunderstood nature. In this context, Frankenstein's creation is given a chance to at least attempt some semblance of a "normal" life, growing as a benevolent character far more than he possibly ever had before. The film's themes of feminist empowerment, bigotry, and the questionable ethics of class systems are rudimentary presented, but by bouncing between the increasingly interlocking adventures of the Monster and his would-be mate, Roddam balances such things without letting the somewhat hefty length feel that way. Lastly, for his part as the god-playing Barron, Sting is a bit underwritten, but he ultimately makes for an adequately evil, Peter Cushing-esque doctor.
(1989)
Dir - Mike Hodges
Overall: MEH
Shot in South and North Carolina with an entirely American cast, Black Rainbow from British filmmaker Mike Hodges, (Get Carter, Flash Gordon), plays somewhat like a supernaturally-tinged Elmer Gantry. Jason Robards is quite strong as an emotionally abusive, alcoholic father who continues to coax his medium daughter into performing her traveling clairvoyant "scam", as is Tom Hulce as a skeptical reporter with a Southern drawl at his disposal. In the lead, Rosanna Arquette is unfortunately kind of uneven, though a lot of that has to due with her underwritten character. While the plotting is rather straightforward, the story itself treads murky waters. Hodges' ideas could have possibly worked if the tone more consistently matched the weirdness, but the cookie-cutter/TV movie presentation instead undermines them. It is a frustrating mess that becomes arbitrarily unfocused, particularly by the ending which offers no satisfying payoff to the mystical mumbo jumbo happenings that kicked everything into motion in the first place. With many of the characters behaving somewhat randomly, there being no real humor, and certainly no scares or even suspense, it is a poor effort for whatever it may have been trying to achieve.
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