Director – John Eyres (Ripper, Irish Jam)
Starring – Emma Burdon-Sutton (The Captain’s Doll, Merlin of the Crystal Cave), Frank Rozelaar-Green (Psychic Wars, Sword of Truth), and Jared Morgan (The Amityville Asylum, Werewolves of the Third Reich)
Release Date – 1987
Rating – 2.5/5
Sometime ago I reviewed the 1992 S.O.V. horror film Holy Moly from Verboden Video. A few years later I reviewed the extremely strange Slashdance for them as well. I started keeping an eye on them at this point and before long I noticed that the Verboden Video page was posting about another label. That label, Culture Shock Releasing, was posting about their upcoming DVD release of Zipperface.
I respect the hell out of Culture Shock for releasing films that would often go overlooked. After I pre-ordered Zipperface they revealed their second title. This time around the 1987 horror title Goodnight God Bless, aka Lucifer, was getting a DVD release. I immediately pre-ordered that one when it was available. Keep up the good work guys!
**Spoiler Alert** The film follows a detective who is searching for a holy man with a knack for killing people. After interviewing a survivor of one of his attacks, he starts dating her mother while hunting down the man of the cloth before he racks up a higher body count. **Spoiler Alert**
The movie started out pretty strong with a fun death and great atmosphere but the movie started to dull by the halfway mark. I really wanted to like this one and give it a solid review but I struggled to finish it. The movie was quick off the start but couldn’t keep pace.
The acting in this one is decent but a lot of the characters do fall flat. The film, much like Zipperface, feels like it was written as a made for television so the characters are generic and dull for the most part. I love generic characters in slashers because they feed into the story but here the story was not enough to make the characters fun. The cast tries but it’s nothing memorable.
The story for this one really draws me in with it’s premise but doesn’t explore it fully. A priest slashing and killing is a movie made for me. However, after the strong start we find ourselves slowly moving through some seriously dull character development and interactions. The last half of the film is mind numbingly dull.
Finally, the film flows like a made for television movie. We get some seriously nice tension and atmosphere during the first portion of the film. With that being said, don’t expect a slasher with amazing kills and a high body count. If you do then you will be very disappointed. Overall, Goodnight God Bless was not what I was expecting. From a collecting standpoint I’m extremely grateful to add this one to my shelf but the film itself is very lackluster.
