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Fiend More at IMDbPro »
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| Index | 13 reviews in total |
5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Intriguing and atmospheric low budget chiller!, 15 July 2002
Author:
WASP-Hellion from Melbourne, Australia
"Fiend" is definitely one of the better examples of low budget "z-grade"
horror. When I put this on, I expected it to be one of those "so bad it's
hilarious" horror films, and even though the first scenes initially had me
in fits of laughter, it's not one of these films.
Once you've seen 5 minutes of the atrocious acting, jumpy editing, bad
frame
composition, laughable special effects and poor lighting and colour
matching, its humour wears off. However, it actually creates a surreal and
dreamy atmosphere reminiscent of the classic "Night Of The Living Dead"
that
will linger even when the film is finished.
The story revolves around a married man trying to prove that his neighbour,
a "fiend" that is an evil spirit in the body of a corpse who must feed on
the living to retain his youthful appearance, is responsible for the spree
of murders that have been occurring in the neighbourhood.
"Fiend" will brilliantly draw you into that neighbourhood yourself and make
you suspend your disbelief and the unnatural dialogue and amateur acting
soon appears normal as you become a part of the surreal world the film
creates.
The surreal atmosphere, predictable yet intriguing story, and climatic
ending make "Fiend" a forgotten gem that I'd recommend to all fans of low
budget horror.
5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
As baseborn horror flicks go, a peck above the paradigm, 29 February 2004
Author:
nostrilingus from fabulous Las Vega$!
FIEND is indisputably an anorexic little fandangle, but it does have a
certain something in its favor...a hard-to-pin-down eerie quality that
makes it click, if only in a small way. The unambiguous bubblegum story
could easily have been lifted from a classic EC horror comic, and
concerns a ghoul who kills people in order to claim their souls,
sustenance which he requires to perpetuate his own abominable
existence.
The special effects in this nugatory spook-show are expectedly callow,
most notably the cartoon neon-blue lightning zaps(a cheap effect which
was tremendously overused in tight-budget 80s horror flicks). And while
these visuals are generally laughable, the film doesn't rely as heavily
on them as many others in the genre tend to.
As is often the case with dirt-floor cinema, the average Joe Anyman is
unlikely to have a positive experience with FIEND, primarily in
response to its rudimentary trappings. Horror fans of a more lax and
forgiving savoir-faire, on the other hand, may well find this a
modestly engaging attainment.
5.5/10...Dohlericious!
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Don Dohler Almost Gets It Right, 8 May 2006
Author:
bababear from United States
Thanks to a very good performance by Don Leifert FIEND comes very close
to being a good movie. Goodness knows it's at least watchable.
Dohler shot in 16mm. Watching this, I kept thinking that if he were
working today with digital video he might have the luxury of more
retakes, more flexibility with the camera, and this might have given
him the opportunity to make this into the movie Dohler saw in his head.
The premise is great. A corpse is reanimated by a mysterious force,
rises from the grave, and heads not for London or a castle in
Transylvania but a Wonder Bread suburb in Maryland.
The freshly risen corpse takes on the name Mr. Longfellow and opens a
music academy in his home. The neighbors find him strange and
reclusive, but at first he doesn't seem menacing. It seems strange that
I don't remember anyone in the film playing a musical instrument, but
oh well.
What the neighbors don't know is that on a regular basis Mr. Longfellow
has to go out and kill someone, wrapping his hands around their necks
and draining their life essence. When he does this he glows red as he
feeds on the innocent victims. He's not a vampire, at least not a
traditional one: most of his attacks are in daylight. In the back of my
mind there's the thought that filming in daylight is cheaper and faster
than setting up lighting, but I'll let that slide.
He needs this life force to continue to live. He looks to be in his
late thirties, but when his life force runs low he looks like a man of
about seventy and if he goes too long between feeding he looks like the
rotting corpse he is.
His next door neighbors are a young couple named Gary and Marsha. How
nice a person is Marsha? She leads the local Scout troop. Although they
don't have any children (there are a couple of oblique references to
children, but we don't ever see them) she's a stay at home housewife
content to clean house and cook like a good Stepford wife. If she's
ever read THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE, she never shows it.
With the passage of time they begin to suspect that Mr. Longfellow
isn't as harmless as he'd like people to think. Then one afternoon, in
the woods right behind their house....
Sure, this idea has been used before. It goes back to the Alfred
Hitchcock/Thornton Wilder masterpiece SHADOW OF A DOUBT in which a girl
in a small town in California comes to suspect that her much loved
uncle is actually a cold blooded murderer. And I suspect that the
circle at the end of the dead end street is actually Dohler's own
neighborhood. But it's an effective use of setting.
The fatal flaw of this movie is the same one that affects so many ultra
low budget ones. We have footage of people talking, then the fiend goes
out and kills someone, then people talk some more.
If you use the standards of community theatre, these are good
performances. Don Leifert makes a nice bad guy. I watched FIEND right
after ALIEN FACTOR in which he plays the hero, and there is a clear
difference between the two characterizations.
Dohler's direction is more assured here than in ALIEN FACTOR. I guess
he learned on the job. He understands the basic structure of film
(establishing shot, medium shot, closeup, reaction, etc.) well enough
that the story in both films is told coherently. Here he really tries
to go a little farther in adding some depth to the characters.
The movie makes extensive use of children, including Dohler's son in a
key role. Somehow I don't think that there were the usual complications
of child welfare workers and limited hours. Most if not all of the
actors probably got pizza instead of a paycheck.
The thing of it is, though, great performances are a collaboration
between a great writer, a strong director, and the actor. It's not a
coincidence that Robert DeNiro's best performances have been under
Martin Scorsese's direction. Look at the number of times Tom Hanks has
worked with Spielberg. Adaptations of plays by Tennessee Williams
brought out something in Elizabeth Taylor that wasn't there in many of
her other films.
And if Dohler had been given the opportunity to tighten up the script
(ideally under the guidance of William Goldman, the ultimate unsung
script doctor) FIEND could have been a really engrossing little movie.
A big budget doesn't guarantee anything. Look at the expensive flops
that Hollywood squeezes out every year. ISHTAR, anyone? How about
HEAVEN'S GATE? Star salaries don't guarantee results. Julia Roberts can
get $20 million per film, but she still has a limited range and still
isn't all that good an actress.
It would be nice if the people who made FIEND had been given a chance
to go on and work on bigger projects. But watching the outtakes makes
it clear that they had a lot of fun doing this. Since I got this from
Netflix I didn't pay a lot to see it; if I'd paid even matinée prices
at the movies, though, I'd have been royally ticked.
Parents' note: Nothing that would really disturb children. The violence
is more suggested than shown. There are some situations where children
are in peril, but there aren't any disturbing images. No nudity. No
sex. No cursing. No graphic violence. This would probably have gotten a
PG reason because it is about a serial killer, but it doesn't stray too
far from G territory.
5 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Longfellow, the red-glowing fiend-fella!, 11 May 2008
Author:
Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls
Despite his reputation of being one of the worst horror directors that ever lived, I personally always felt a strange respect and admiration towards good old Don Dohler. Both "Nightbeast" and "The Galaxy Invader" qualify as terrifically cheesy entertainment (if you fancy low-budget exploitation cinema, of course) and I even daresay this "Fiend" is his absolute finest achievement. Sure, "Fiend" is a slow-paced film with a total lack of logic or explanation, but simultaneously it's a truly spirited film with likable performances, better-than-average effects and (unintentionally?) clever undertones. The movie opens with a written definition of what exactly is a fiend and immediately after we witness how a demoniacally possessed reddish cloud enters a grave on a forsaken cemetery, possesses the corpse of a recently deceased music tutor and causes the body to emerge. Where did the evil cloud come from? Don't know… Why did it enter that grave specifically? Who cares…? What purpose will the walking and continuously rotting fiend now fulfill? Why even bother to contemplate about that? The fiend, Eric Longfellow, settles himself in a seemingly quiet Baltimore suburb but, unfortunately, he has one little problem to take into account. His body decays over and over again, so he frequently needs to recharge his vital batteries by strangling innocent victims – preferably young women – he picks up from the streets. His neighbor with too much free time on his hands suspects Longfellow to be involved in the unsolved murder spree and starts his own private investigation. "Fiend" is often too slow and tedious, but the delightfully cheese and clumsily shot murder sequences compensate for a lot! Whenever Longfellow strangles a new victim, his face and hands bath in a funky red glow and once or twice you even notice how his decomposing face revitalizes itself, which was really well-done. Unintentionally or not, "Fiend" also works as a parody on the typical life and relations in suburbs. The neighbors are noisy and suspicious towards newcomers and, at the same time, Longfellow himself wondrously depicts the prototypical social outcast. Every neighborhood has one like that, the strange guy your mom warns you not to go near or the bastard that never returns the ball when it accidentally falls in his garden. Don Leifert, who starred in practically all of Dohler's movies, is simply terrific as the emotionless corpse. I read in an article that Leifert was going through a rough personal period and struggled with an alcohol addiction at the time of shooting. Well, this is perhaps the only time that depressions and the effects of alcohol abuse contribute something good to someone's acting career. My advice would be to disregard the low rating, skip reading the bashing reviews and forget everything you heard about Don Dohler as a director. This film is a lot of fun too watch, Dohler's direction is actually quite steady and the script contains a handful of dared twists (child's death, for example) and a shocking finale. "Fiend" is a genuine smörgåsbord for experienced B-movie/cinematic trash fanatics.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
I liked it, but I liked Alien Factor a lot too., 27 March 2007
Author:
hocfocprod from United States
OK, so I have a soft spot for low budget indie movies with typical 70's
effects.
Alien Factor, the director's first movie, seemed to me to have one
major problem: It was much bigger than its budget. The story had too
much to accomplish. It seems to me that with Fiend writer/director, Don
Dohler realized that a "smaller" movie would be better suited to his
resources.
The script is pure genius at staying within its means. The main cast
and locations are kept simple, the F/X aren't stupendous but they do
the job and the storyline is out there enough to keep it interesting.
If you like movies with heart that just want to entertain you for 90
minutes or so, FIEND may be worth a watch. It's certainly worth having
on your online video rental list or picking up on the cheap at a
convention.
If you're looking for tons of gore and naked women, this one's not for
you. In fact, big scares aren't really present either, but it did
illicit a certain nostalgic feeling for me.
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
bad but sympathetic horror-flick for patient viewers, 9 May 2002
Author:
Lars Jacobsson (front_by_front@hotmail.com) from Stockholm, Sweden
Is this movie really as bad as the former comments made it out to be?
Personally I don't think so. Sure, the acting is (sometimes painfully) bad,
the special fx are laughable and the lightning sucks (some parts are so
dark
you can hardly follow what's happening) but who rents forgotten curiosities
like this for it's production values?
And does a minimal budget, inexperienced crew and a very 'functional'
script
necessarily result in cheezy, grade Z 'good for laughs'-kind of movie? I
strongly disagree. Somehow the B movie seems to have got mixed up with the
grade Z-movie...
Anyway, to the film: the plot is about a devilish fiend (some kind of evil
spirit in a human form) that has to kill people and steal their
'lifeforce',
so thats it's stolen human body won't decompose. The fiend is a pathetic
walrus-looking guy who spends his time giving violin-classes and listening
to bad synthesizer music in his lonely apartment. The only people who get
in
the way of his killing spree is a nice, typical smalltown, middle class
couple who of course starts playing detectives. The couple works great, and
gives the films greatest performances. The actors are no professionals, but
they act and look so normal it gives the film a genuine feel, and even
moments of real warmth. The film has no fright or speed, so you'll have to
have both patience and appreciation for the rare glimpses of creativity,
dreams and simple humanity that sometimes surround B-movies like this
one.
I somehow kind of ended up liking this little oddity, but don't take my
recommendation too seriously - I often end up liking this kind of
nice-spirited, slow horror-sleepers that nobody seems to remember. Also
worth mentioning is that there is no gore or nudity, so gorehounds and fans
of euro-horror cinema better stay far away.
I'll give it 5/10 for it's heart and humanity. Failure can be
beautiful.
Fiend, 17 January 2010
Author:
Scarecrow-88 from United States
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
A demonic creature enters rotted corpse in a graveyard, assuming the
identity as head of a violin company, needing the lifeforce of human
victims to prolong it's existence. Without the human lifeforce it
needs, the corpse would quickly degenerate, returning to the grotesque
state it was once before the demon took it over. As
Longfellow(..portrayed by Don Leifert, an effective bit of casting, I
thought), the demon stalks and strangles victims, maintaining human
form as long as it can feed without interruption but when a concerned
snooping neighbor, Gary Kender(Richard Nelson) finds him suspicious,
this creature's reign of terror could very well be jeopardized.
Without the monetary benefits of major Hollywood studios, director Dan
Dohler does what he can with limited resources available. Using red
animated cells, Dohler shows Longfellow's glowing hands as they wrap
around the throats of unfortunate victims, until his whole body
eventually emanates. Dohler has latex make-up applied to Leifert's
face, while also dying his hair to show how the body regresses, until
he finds another victim to feed energy from. There's a room with an
altar, and candles, coordinated off with a black curtain inside
Longfellow's basement where he slices apart photographs of victims he
killed(..for some odd reason, he keeps his knife in a box). The film
gets rather repetitious as Longfellow follows after victims, assaults
them, and leaves their bodies falling in a heap to the ground. We see
Longfellow's means for maintaining an existence(..his long-suffering
secretarial taskmaster, Dennis Frye, played by Dohler regular George
Stover often performing his duties while Longfellow can go about his
malevolent activities)and Gary's sleuthing, seeking to find the one
responsible for the murder of the little girl neighbor behind his own
house. This is quite a family affair as Dohler casts friends and
relatives in various roles, shooting scenes in his own house and
neighborhood, every bit a labor of love(..actor/producer Stover has
said that Fiend is Dohler's favorite film of those he has directed).
With Marsha(Elaine White), Gary's beloved wife, against her better
judgment(..Gary's always insists her lock the doors for personal
safety, and Longfellow actually murdered a girl behind their house for
petesake!), entering Longfellow's house(..he calls for pain medication,
hoping to draw her into his lair for her lifeforce), Dohler obviously
sets up his big suspense sequence where the threat covered extensively
in the newspapers regarding a series of killings in the area, hits
right at home. One would have to question such a decision to enter such
a rather unpleasant fellow's home without talking it over with
Gary(..who is away asking a kid about what he saw in regards to
witnessing Longfellow's murder of his employee). The ending is as
bizarre as the opening, showing the demon in it's original
state(..where it came from and goes to is anybody's guess)before
entering the corpse. This wasn't as bad as I imagined it would be,
mainly because Leifert's Longfellow is such a reprehensible creep, he
remains an effective heavy throughout.
2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
loooooooooooooooooooooooooooow budget, 8 October 2008
Author:
trashgang from Midian
What the hell, collecting all the video nasties I came to this one. What the hell, it's so low budget that it's laughable. No gore , no suspense, no nudity, no nothing. Although acting is extreme low this one sometimes makes your flesh creep. Unbelievable that this is released on DVD, there is so much more out there waiting for a proper release. I found the DVD, included were the bloopers, they had surely fun with making this turkey. Anyway, it became one of the cult movies because it was so bad it became good, have a look at it once and forget this extreme low budget. O yeah, I have the full uncut, what happens if you should see the cut version? Why was this ever one of the nasties?
2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Beware the Fiend, 29 November 2005
Author:
somethingtotallyoriginal from Canada
Super good cult/horror/mystery (obviously not much of a mystery for
us). I can't believe its taken me this long to discover a gem as good
and unique as this. Thanx to the good people at Retromedia
Entertainment for making it possible by providing a nice collectors
edition DVD.
This low budgeter is full of clever story and dialog. The highlight is
the brilliant, long, creepy, suspicious, elusive performance by the
main character Mister Longfellow. There's also a cute, loving wife...
but unfortunately she wasn't as smart as her concerned neighbor
husband.
A classic example of how a film doesn't need a budget to be good...
just a writer/director who knows what he's doing and a few friends to
help. Thats all you need. It keeps the atmosphere. And the spirits. If
you haven't seen Fiend you are missing out!
1 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
worse film i have ever seen, 24 August 2007
Author:
john_mezzetta from Canada
I saw this movie in 1982. I still remember it because it ranks as the worse movie i have ever seen. Bar none. The scene with the girl going down the stairs lasts 10 minutes with 342 different angles. After a while, i wanted the fiend to jump out just to get it over with. This movie looks like something i might make in on my street with my friend. I asked for my money back from the video store when i returned it. And after they reviewed the file, they returned my money. First and last time that happened. ROFL. Truly awful. They want more lines so om gonna give them some. And here is another. I got nothing more to say... Wow, they want 10 lines. Here is another.
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