Deadly Blessing is one of Wes Craven’s lesser-known films, largely forgotten by all but the most avid horror buffs, but those who have thus far only sampled the director’s more celebrated titles should definitely make the effort to check this one out: there’s plenty of atmosphere, some effective scares, decent performances from a surprisingly good cast, and one hell of an unpredictable finalé, but best of all Deadly Blessing sees Craven planting seeds that would grow to become iconic moments in his later work.

Maren Jensen threatened by a snake in her bath is undoubtedly the basis for an almost identical scene in A Nightmare on Elm Street, where Freddy’s gloved hand rises out of the water between the legs of a dozing Nancy; Elm Street’s freaky dream sequences clearly mirror those experienced by Sharon Stone’s character in Deadly Blessing; and this film’s shock ending is just as sudden and silly as Ronee Blakley’s very similar departure through her front door window courtesy of Krueger.

There are also a couple of striking similarities to Scream: Ghostface terrorising Neve Campbell is highly reminiscent of an attack on Stone by a cloaked figure in a barn, and there is little doubt in my mind that Scream’s ‘double killer’ revelation was also inspired by this earlier Craven effort.

And although this might be stretching things a tad, Deadly Blessing’s ‘chickens in the coffin’ scene and its whole ‘creepy religion’ angle remind me just a bit of The Serpent and The Rainbow…

Deadly Blessing’s legacy is surely enough to qualify the film as recommended viewing for horror fans, but factor in several very attractive actresses (with Jensen providing the obligatory nudity), Michael Berryman from The Hills Have Eyes as Hittite man-child William Glutz, Howie from The Fall Guy, a supremely sinister Ernest Borgnine, several cool death scenes, a sneaky visual reference to Craven’s 1978 TV Movie ‘Summer of Fear’, and the truly whacked-out last reel (which includes both a killer hermaphrodite and an incubus!), and what you have is an entertaining slice of American rural Gothic that definitely deserves a watch.