Who Was Lee Blessing and How Did He Die?

All of the early Wes Craven films I have seen are very well-made horror/suspense stories. This applies to “Last House on the Left,” “The Hills Have Eyes,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” and “Deadly Friend,” yes, that “Deadly Friend,” the one with the robot and the basketball. Now that his 1981 film, “Deadly Blessing” is available on dvd and blu-ray in the United States, and will be available on dvd and blu-ray in the United Kingdom on March 25, according to amazon.co.uk, I took a look at that film.

“Deadly Blessing” tells the tale of a husband and wife who live near a Hittite settlement somewhere in the U.S. The state in which they live is never divulged, however, the closing credits of the film reveal that the film was made entirely in Texas. Craven, on the commentary track, tells us that it was filmed in Waxahachie, Texas, though, no mention is ever made in the film that the location of the action is Texas. Most of the exteriors of the film take place on farmland in large prairies, so it looks like it could be Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, eastern Colorado, or even eastern Washington State. The couple, Martha and Jim Schmidt (Maren Jensen, who played Athena on the 1978 version of tv’s “Battlestar Galactica,” and Doug Barr, who a year later would begin his time on the Lee Majors series, “The Fall Guy”), appear to live near Jim’s father, a strict leader of a Hittite sect and lawgiver of a farming community. Let’s get this out of the way first: According to the British Museum website, “Between 1400 and 1200 BC the Hittites established one of the great empires of the ancient Middle East. At its height, the empire encompassed central Turkey, north western Syria, and Upper Mesopotamia (north eastern Syria and northern Iraq).” I could get hung up on wondering how the Hittites lasted into the early 1980’s and became a group of people very similar to the Amish who lived somewhere in the United States, but I choose to just let that rest. The British Museum website does not give any indication that the Hittites ever found their way to Europe or North America. So, anyway, the three lead actresses in “Deadly Blessing” are gorgeous! Maren Jensen as Martha Schmidt, plays her character with the “calmness in peril” one might expect from the female character that we soon understand will be the Jamie Lee Curtis-esque character in the film. In the first 15 minutes of the film, her husband, Jim, is killed when a tractor runs him into the wall of a barn. He had discovered that the word “INCUBUS” had been painted on the a wood plank on the wall. Because Jim and Martha do not adhere to the strict standards of the Hittite ways, Jim has been shunned by his father, Isaiah, played very well by Ernest Borgnine. One of the townspeople, William Gluntz (Michael Berryman who you will recognize from Craven’s “The Hills Have Eyes”), calls Martha an incubus whenever he sees her. After the death of her husband, two of Martha’s friends, Lana (Sharon Stone) and Vicky (Susan Buckner) come to visit her. As the two women and Martha are not of the Hittite way and are feared to be possessed by demons, serpents, and the like, they are not made entirely welcome by the Hittite community.

Strange things begin to happen to them as will generally happen to characters in a horror film. The religious aspect of the film is a familiar one, but probably feels more familiar now since there seems to be a subgenre that has formed in the last ten years of horror films that incorporate religious zealots and their craziness into scripts. Kevin Smith’s recent film “Red State,” is just one example of this current trend. Thankfully, in “Deadly Blessing,” the religious zealousness aspect is not exploited as much as it could have been. It does form the basis for why the action in the film is occurring, but the Hittites, as presented in the film, are not presented as complete wackos. Their faith and ways do seem genuine and not simply a handy reason written into the script to sever heads and remove entrails from cows or other assorted animals or people. As well, in 1981, exposure to and accessibility to so many movies of the same genre with the same plot elements were not as available as they are now, even with the drive-in theater boom that was still present, but fading by the time “Deadly Blessing” was released. One could not, in 1981, attend a horror film convention at which one would find him or herself bombarded by many, many low budget horror films that seemed a bit like a case of “same movie-itis” had infested the room----like zombies. For this reason, even though religious fanaticism was, by 1981, a familiar trope in horror films, (“Carrie,” “Jennifer,” and other assorted films with “Devil,” “Satan,” or “Demon” in their titles) it likely did not seem as familiar to the casual moviegoer. Additionally, as alluded to earlier, Craven does not overexpose the viewer to the idea that these Hittites are completely insane. Their religion is simply very, very strict and unfortunately subject to the spirit of an incubus. The Hittites in the film do not engage in any strange devil worship, eat dead animals, or anything strange like that. Isaiah does inflict harsh punishment on males who are tempted by sins of the flesh, especially the flesh of the beautiful , Vicky whose flesh Isaiah’s son, John (Jeff East)is tempted by. This temptation is completely understandable. By the way, Jeff East played the young Clark Kent who lived in Smallville in the original “Superman” (1978). The gore factor in “Deadly Blessing” is quite low as Craven does a commendable job of creating a sense of fear without feeling the need to overly expose any characters to head wounds or beheadings. “Deadly Blessing” works and is a good film mostly because of the very good performances by the entire cast. The three female leads are good actresses. It helps a lot, especially seeing this film for the first time in 2013, when it is a lamentable truth that, if this film were to be remade today, the three leads would most likely be played by 19 year-old girls and not women. The three leads in “Deadly Blessing” are adults of perhaps 24-26 years. They look like normal women, as if they do indeed eat more than three times a week. The female leads are also written well. They are intelligent characters and are not at all written as ditzy, dumb, or otherwise unappealing. There is no useless dialogue in the film that slows down the action of the film. The pace of the film is just right, as every scene moves the plot forward. There are no superfluous characters who show up in the film only to be tortured or killed by a runaway John Deere. As he displayed in “The Hills Have Eyes,” Wes Craven knew, by this point, how to move a story along. “Deadly Blessing” is one of those films that ends up in the horror category, but it works as a drama with horror elements. It is not a slasher film, not a creature film, not a psychological horror film, not a blood and guts fest. The fact that it was filmed on location in actual big fields in a small town helps. The man who would, 18 years later, in “Music of the Heart,” team up with Meryl Streep and direct a good film about teaching music in an inner-city school, succeeds with “Deadly Blessing” in providing a strong story with solid performances. I give “Deadly Blessing” three ears of corn out of four.