An army cadet is bullied by four other students and some authority figures. One day he is sent to clean the old church basement as a punishment and, while there, he finds a secret room which contains an ancient Satanic Mass book. He discovers that passages from it can reincarnate a 16th century Satanist called Esteban. Using a computer, he revives Esteban and has bloody revenge on all those from the academy who have wronged him.

Evilspeak was another early 80’s horror movie that found itself onto the UK video nasty list. These were the films considered so offensive that they threatened the moral fabric of Britain back in the day. As a result it was banned and, naturally, has benefited ever since from the notoriety. Like most on that list it’s difficult to understand what all the fuss was about with this one. If anything it proves that the censors back then were a spectacularly over-sensitive and humourless group of people. Because it’s well-nigh impossible to see how they could have thought anyone could have taken this film seriously enough to then go out and commit acts of violence. This is a film about a possessed computer after all. It features a horde of man-eating pigs and has a climax where the hero floats through the air wielding a big sword. To my knowledge, none of these things has ever cropped up in the news in the years since Evilspeak was released.

How is it as a film? It’s fun, if nothing too impressive. It takes it’s time to get to the horror stuff to be fair, although this does allow for more character development. The main guy Cling Howard (Ron’s brother) is pretty decent and is a guy that’s easy to root for. The film is essentially a nerd revenge flick and the bullies are an appalling bunch of cretins. So you are willing them to be dispensed with in as nasty a way as possible. And to be fair, the climax is pretty good with all manner of gory mayhem ensuing. Evilspeak is kind of a hybrid of Carrie with early 80’s computer technology…with demon pigs thrown in for good measure. It’s one of those horror films from the time that is kind of crazed but pretty imaginative, so it’s easy to get onside with this one.