The Eleventh Commandment — The Eleventh Commandment (Blu Ray)
The Eleventh Commandment( aka The Destructor or Body Count) appeared in 1986. It was the 10th film helmed by Paul Leder- a Springfield, Massachusetts born director, producer, and writer- whose filmography went from a low-budget comedy about a man dreaming of planning to plant marigold flowers from coast-to-coast( 1970’s Marigold Man). Onto sleazed psycho flick ( 1972’s I Dismembered Mama), giant gorilla escapes action-adventure( 1976’s Ape), and vet-exploitation/ serial killer film( 1976’s My Friends Need Killing). The Eleventh Commandment is well enough filmed, and managers to get the mood/ tone just right in its different genres, it just it’s all thrown together in an often unbalancing & jarring manner.
The film begins introducing us to Robert Knight- played by US-born Sri Lanka actor Bernard White. Robert is incarcerated in a mental house, believing himself to be a priest that needs to carry out retribution on his rich family who have conned him out of his fortune, causing him to lose his marbles. He escapes, stabbing his way out of the hospital- first he contacts his nine-year cousin Deborah(Lauren Woodland)- this is where the cute & sentimental kids drama elements come in. Fairly soon he makes his way to the house- where his family are up to various dodgy deals, & double crossings. And what unfolds switches( often fairly rapidly) between camp 1980’s soapiness, family drama, and brutal blood drenching psycho-slashing.
White is great as the distributed Robert- switching between twitchy holy-than-thou preaching, charming & kind( though a little creepy) uncle, and knife lunged/ wild-eyed madman. The rest of the cast is good enough by soap levels- with a good blend of bitchy women, cheating & cocky men, boozing rundown cops, and pompous to kind servents. Woodland is effective as the always trusting & naïve Deborah. Along we get some quicky character traits & weird moments- like the bitchy head nurse lifts small dumbbells while chatting on the phone, and the film opens with moody shots of a woman dressed in flowing red playing a violin as she walks from garden to hospital. At points, even with the tonal switches, the film does coasts a little in places- but I can’t really think of another film like The Eleventh Commandment- so if you like the idea of a blend soapy campiness, sentimental drama, and bludge eyed & blood red stab psycho action- this is the film for you.
Moving onto this new Blu Ray- and first up we get another great VS scan of the film, with nice bold & crisp colours, with a good even balance through-out. Moving onto the extras & we get two on-camera interviews- first is with lead actor Bernard White, this runs around the seventeen-minute mark- he talks about how he prepared for the role of Robert, working with the writer, director, producer Paul Leder & this been his second film with Leder. Moving onto talk about memories of certain scenes, and working with child actor Lauren Woodland- it’s a good interview, with White coming off well. Next, we get an around an eleven-minute interview with Lauren Woodland- here she talks about starting acting work in commercials, her getting her first film role in this film. She moves onto talk about working with both White & Leder, and memorable scenes/ locations- again another most worthy interview. Lastly, we get a promotional gallery.
The Eleventh Commandment mangers to gleefully skip between soap camp, heartfelt drama, and demented murderous attack- so hats off to VS for once again tracking down another distinctive & genre-shifting film for release.