Heartland Of Darkness — Heartland Of Darkness( Blu Ray)
Heartland Of Darkness is an unreleased(until now) satanic panic-focused pulpy thriller come horror film from the late 1980’s, which features infamous 80’s scream queen Linnea Quigley. Here from the folks at Visual Vengeance- Wide Eye release sub-label for releasing low-budget retro genre fare, is a region-free Blu-Ray. The disc is literally packed to bursting with extras- two commentary tracks, making-of doc, interviews, a work print & more.
Heartland Of Darkness( aka Blood Church) was an American film captured on 16mm, and was finished in the year 1989. It was written & directed by Eric Swelstad- who had numerous false starts trying to a distributed the film, and in the end, gave up. Seemingly a thirty-five mintue work print of film got out- which drifted around the horror underground- but it never got an official release. Swelstad has four other feature lengths to his name, as well as a few shorts & a TV film. His features went from teen comedy Too Good To Be True(1997), slasher The Curse of Lizzie Borden 2: Prom Night (2008), and creature feature Horror Frankenstein Rising (2008).
The now finished and complete version runs at the one hour and forty-one-minute mark- and really what we have here is a pulpy small-town thriller/ mystery- which is edged with a few gory deaths/ light horror tropes. After the fairly lengthy credits, which are blended with footage of a man in night-time wood being strung up & gutted (off camera) by a group of shades-wearing men. We meet the film's lead character Paul Henson(Dino Tripodis) a forty-something single dad with a teenage daughter Christine(Sharon Klopfenstein)- who has just moved to Copperton, a small town in Ohio to set up s local paper.
As the film unfolds Paul gets together the staff for running the paper- with a spate of strange deaths/ seemingly ritual murders occurring, Paul gets deeper & deeper trying to find out what’s occurring in the small town. In the meantime the rather sinister & maniacal-eyed Reverend Donovan (Nick Baldasare) is stirring up the local folk with his strange sermons, he’s in control of the town, and may be connected with the murders. Brought into the mix we have the flirty & bangle-wearing teacher Julia Francine (Linnea Quigley), and balding ‘n’ floppy mistouched Reve Kane(John Dunleavy) who investigates cases of satanic shenanigans.
The film with the Blu Ray & its original poster art/ marking is presented as an all-out horror film- yes, there are elements in the film's make- a few gory killings, some satanic horror tropes. But mostly it’s a small-town mystery/ thriller, which has a very distinctive pulpy quality to it- with often quite a TV movie feel to both the rather mixed acting & film capture. Tripodis is passable as the leading man, though the jarring shifts back & forth with his stubble growth is a little disconcerting. Klopfenstein as his daughter again is passable- though looks way too old to be his teen daughter. And the supporting cast is again mixed. Quigley gets her kit off a few times, and works well enough as teacher-come-temptresses. The highlight here is Baldasare, who gets hammier as the film goes on really relishing being as evil as poss. On the whole Heartland Of Darkness is ok, if your looking for a pulpy low-budget mystery/ thriller, with light horror touches you’ll probably enjoy what’s on offer here- though the one-hour forty-one-minute playtime feels around twenty-thirty- minutes.
As we’ve come to expect with Visual Vengeance the disc is stacked with extras. There’s Deeper Into Darkness (38.39) an all-new doc about the making of the film, featuring interviews with director Swelstad, a few of the crew, and actor Baldasare who played the evil priest. The doc starts from where the initial idea for the film 1986 Christian fiction novel This Present Darkness, moving through the gathering together of the key players in the film, and the finished product/ issues the film faced. All in all a well-put-together documentary. Otherwise, we get two commentary tracks- one with director Eric Swelstad, star Nick Baldasare, cinematographer Scott Spears and composer Jay Woelfel And one with Tony Strauss of Weng’s Chop magazine. Linnea Quigley Remembers- Onscreen interview with actress. Archival Linnea Quigley 'Close Up' TV interview. Original TV spots, trailers and behind-the-scenes footage. Complete original Fallen Angels 1990 workprint- this is the original version of what became Heartland Of Darkness. Fallen Angels commentary track with director Eric Swelstad. The Making of Fallen Angels - vintage cast & crew newscast interviews. Blood Church – original distributor promotional video. Behind-the-scenes image gallery
As well as these on-disc extras we get a nice selection of things with the release- Six-page liner notes, Limited Edition Heartland of Darkness “Prayer Cloth” & Limited Edition slipcase- only with the first pressing. Collectible Linnea Quigley folded mini-poster.‘Stick your own’ VHS sticker set. Reversible sleeve featuring original Blood Church promotional art.
Theirs is no doubt Visual Vengeance have once again pulled out all the stops to give the definitive release of Heart Of Darkness here, and hats off to them for that. But I’m afraid the film itself rather left me feeling rather underwhelmed- as I was very much expecting an OTT satanic horror film, and what I got instead was a rather limp & bland pulpy thriller- which didn’t really do much for me at tall.