Red-Barracuda Baltimore director Don Dohler made a number of interesting very low budget horror and sci-fi features back in the day, probably the best of which was the highly entertaining The Alien Factor (1978). His films always at least attempted to make the most of the meagre production values at their disposal. Fiend is another such film and one which does some decent things on a shoe-string budget. This one is about a strange entity which reanimates a corpse, who then moves into a suburban neighbourhood and promptly begins a campaign of serial murder. This fiend hides under the guise of a music teacher.The acting is basic and the make-up and effects work are of a cheap standard, although I did quite enjoy the animated red spectre which creates the undead fiend. But, as in other Dohler films, there is an unmistakable earnestness to proceedings and it always feels like he at least makes an effort to try things irrespective of his tiny budget. Like his other films, the Baltimore setting adds something different too, with lots of outdoor shooting and local flavour. As a horror film, it has its moments such as the closing scenes which carried at least a little bit of threat I thought. It's a film which should appeal to fans of this director and those who appreciate low budget horrors from the period. It's hardly a lost classic or anything like that but like other Dohler movies it does have a certain charm and honest endeavour.

Scarecrow-88 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.

bababear 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.

somethingtotallyoriginal 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!