Deadly Blessing
Short description
Martha moves to a farm near the church of a strict religious community known as the Hittites, who reject modern technology and live apart from the surrounding society. She has married Jim, a member of the group, but his marriage to an outsider has cost him his place among them. After he dies in a sudden and unexplained accident, Martha chooses to remain on the farm rather than leave as she has been urged to, and her friends Lana and Vicky come to stay with her. The three women soon find themselves unsettled by strange occurrences around the property.
Wes Craven directed and co-wrote the film with Glenn M. Benest and Matthew Barr. It was his fourth feature as director, following Stranger in Our House and preceding Swamp Thing. The cast is led by Maren Jensen as Martha, with Sharon Stone as Lana and Susan Buckner as Vicky; Douglas Barr plays Jim and Jeff East appears as John Schmidt. Produced by United Artists, Polygram Pictures and Interplanetary Pictures Productions on a budget of about 3 million dollars, the film runs 104 minutes and mixes horror with fantasy and thriller elements.
Audience response has been mixed. On IMDb it holds a rating of 5.5 out of 10 from roughly 7,800 votes, and on TMDB it also stands at 5.5 out of 10, from around 211 votes. A critics' rating of 5 out of 10 from nine reviews places critical and audience reactions at a similar level.
What's left behind the scenes
- After an accident involving a horse and carriage, Ernest Borgnine was taken to the hospital with a head injury. He resumed filming three days later.
- The film is famous for the scene where a spider falls into a girl's mouth (Lana). Sharon Stone, who was then unknown to the general public, played her and, incidentally, starred in many of the film's posters. Director and screenwriter Wes Craven began trying to convince Stone to hold the spider herself. She demanded that the spider's chelicerae (its fangs) be removed first. They tried to dissuade her with the argument that it would be extremely difficult for the spider to feed afterwards, but she insisted.
- The scene with the creature emerging from the floor was imposed on Wes Craven by the film's producers (Max A. Keller, Matthew Barr, Glenn M. Benest, William S. Gilmore, Patricia Herskovitz).
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
