Fiend (1980)

An evil spirit, represented by an animated blob of red light, possesses the corpse of a music professor and wine lover, Mr. Longfellow. The spirit's master plan is to move into the suburbs, teach music, and drink lots of wine. However, to keep from decaying, a steady diet of the lifeforce of others is necessary.

Are you seeing the major flaw already? "The spirit's master plan is to move into the suburbs, teach music, and drink lots of wine." Yeah, so the spirit's motives don't make a lot of sense, but it does have to kill and that's all that matters, I suppose.

Longfellow's next-door neighbour, an utterly normal man with an awful 'stache, doesn't like Longfellow, because he's always playing music. He soon starts to suspect Longfellow is hiding something and that he may be involved in the recent string of strangulations terrifying the county. Unfortunately, his wife thinks he's just holding a grudge over the music thing and isn't very supportive.

I kind of liked this movie. It's obviously shot on a very low budget, the acting is a bit dopey, and the story doesn't make much sense. However, the characters are all fun and real. The hero and his wife are such normal people, who talk like real, average people, have the same sorts of interests, conversations, thoughts, arguments, looks, etc.. Longfellow, on the other hand, is a snobby bastard who oozes contempt for other people; he's only pleased when he's alone, listening to music and drinking wine. He seems bored with the rest of the world and merely has to endure the other beings that exist within it. Would you be surprised to learn he's a cat-person? Egotistical, evil bastards always love cats.

There isn't a lot of suspense for a horror movie, though, because Longfellow pretty much just walks up to people and overpowers them Tor Johnson-style. There are only two moments that go for real suspense, and only one of the works, that being the climax, when the neighbour's wife is in peril. Yeah, it's kinda predictable.

Fiend is a pretty good effort for its z-movie budget, with some odd characters to enjoy. It's not a cheesefest by any stretch, not the crazy antics you've come to expect from Baltimore thanks to John Waters. It comes closest in tone to Bob Clark than anyone else.