The Fiend (1972)

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Disappointment for a huge fan!

Am I Missing Something?

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

This has a very poor average rating from IMDb but don't let that put you off this forgotten gem of 1970s British exploitation cinema . It's certainly one of the most deranged movies I've seen in a long time and it'll take me a long time to forget it . It's interesting the screenwriter is called Brian Comport but one can't help thinking it's a word play on " Brain Compost " and is in fact a pen name for either Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens and the film sets out its amusingly tasteless stall right from the very start The film opens in a small church hall where we see a congregation listening to a fire and hell preacher whilst he carries out a baptism and you won't confuse this sequence with The God Channel " Sing my brethren sing " And indeed a miracle does indeed take place . Despite there only being a solitary church organ in the hall, trumpets , percussion instruments and electric guitars are heard as the lead singer mouths words to an entirely different song while the congregation have epileptic fits and terminal attacks of Tourette's syndrome . Tne momentum is kept up as after the title sequence we're treated to a British version of BATMAN where a security guard gets in to a punch up with a couple of villains . Just a pity the director forgot to put in the ZAP ! POW ! OUCH ! captions onto the screen . Luckily the security guard is rescued by the rozzers who tell him he's lucky the villains were only carrying screwdrivers ! Let me get this straight - if you're mugged by a couple of bad guys armed with screwdrivers you should be thankful that they're not carrying dangerous weapons ? well that's put my mind at rest Some people might claim it's offensive the way this film portrays Christians but I disagree . It's religion itself that's the target of THE FIEND . To quote Professor Steven Weinberg " In a secular world good people would do good things and bad people would do bad things but in order for good people to do bad things only religion must be involved . THE FIEND being rabid exploitation cinema doesn't concern itself with such cerebral philosophy but still rightly portrays religion as the worst thing ever invented by the human species and if anyone feels offended by its portrayal of Christianity would the same person feel offended if the story was set in Pakistan or Afghanistan where a student of a Madrasa school goes around killing infidels ?That said 1971 was a different world when this film was produced and religion did in fact find a new window of bad opportunity with new age thinking . Christianity was simply an old , boring dying religion and people handing out pamphlets and preaching damnation if sinners didn't repent would still have found a politely indifferent audience . Imagine how this modified scene from the film would look today in the present moral zietgeist as Kenny knocks on the door of a teenage schoolgirl " Is your mother in " " No . Why ? " I'm from the BBC "

Having recently bought a copy of the 2010 release of this lost gem, finally available fully uncut and beautifully presented in anamorphic widescreen 1.78:1 - Odeon Entertainmant ODNF162 - I can't recommend it enough. Taking into consideration the very strict censorship laws and general climate the time of it's production, it's easy to see why it was butchered and suppressed at the time of it's initial release in 1972, the Mary Whitehouse brigade would have soiled themselves collectively at the subject matter alone. And the murder scenes, whilst fairly tame compared to some in todays more enlightened times, were way out there for early 70's Britain.It's not the most polished of films, but the directing is pretty good and the acting pretty solid throughout - with a convincing enough ratio of ham, menace and believability - with the script and storyline excellent. Overall the results, particularly when taking the fairly small budget into consideration, really are very, very good indeed. Which is why I honestly think this film was years ahead of it's time.An essential addition to any Brit Horror collection - it's a proto-slasher of sorts, imo - and also to anyone with an interest in looking at the darker and less positive sides of religion and it's very strong tendencies towards brainwashing, mind control and even abuse. I'd also recommend it to anyone who just loves a good well made and sincere film, however if you're just a cannibals & zombies or shoot 'em ups only freak, don't bother, it's definitely not for you.

This movie is boring because the story proceeds so painfully slowly, the director presumably trying (though failing) to induce a slow crescendo of menace. It is frightening not because of the few brief glimpses of violent crime or its result, but because we know that all too many simple minded (or just plain stupid) people in the real world are capable of falling into the clutches of the sort of nasty, egotistical, sadistic bully, totally self-absorbed in his delusion of moral rectitude and continually playing the puritanical guilt card with his half-witted followrs, that is the Minister played so effectively here by Patrick Magee; and that there are all too many instances (though, thankfully, several orders of magnitude fewer than the numbers of the stupid and simple minded) of children growing up in the warped, hyper-pious but actually vicious atmosphere created in families and communities where such ministers of so-called religion and their equally nasty followers rule the roost, who grow up so mentally disturbed that they eventually do terrible things.However, here the point is made so slowly that it takes much patience to sit through it; I imagine that it made no major moral impact on society when it appeared and that it has has been all but forgotten in the 36 years since. Given how much has come to light during those 36 years of the evils I refer to, one could perhaps claim that the film was in some small way prescient like Cassandra; however there were enough signs before, just not the instant media coverage thereof that there would be in the 21st century. All too many people follow religions with all too much blind zeal nowadays as before, and probably as always since the dawn of civilization. Unfortunately this movie will not be seen by enough people to influence that doom-laden trend. The sort of people about which this movie warns us are probably just the sort of people who believe that to watch movies at all is immoral!

A truly dreadful film, seen during the night on BBC2, but glad I saw it! A fairly comprehensive anti-religion film... anyone who comes into contact with it becomes maniacs! Superb! Notable for yet another Patrick Magee scenery-chewing exercise, a host of unknown actors who remained unknown, and a truly jaw dropping series of appalling songs, sung by the "Shirley Bassey" Stars in their Eyes winner, Maxine Barrie (in her younger days!). Poor dear had to wait over 20 years for public recognition. If I were her, I'd buy all the prints and burn them! Definitely a B-movie for showing in a double bill with some cheapo Hammer concoction, but unintentionally funny in places.