For a long time, I've remembered a film where someone was asleep with their mouth wide-opened and a spider goes from the ceiling into their mouth... this is that film! Now I know which film I was trying to remember. -- Warning if spiders and snakes bother you in a film then you might want to pass this one up!! This isn't a bad film... rather fun to watch. There is a group of Hittites (Amish like-community) that live near the modern people. Some of the moderns are afraid of the Hittites - especially when the Hittites call some of them an Incubus and refuse to let their kin speak to them. People end up with strange deaths. The questions: Is it the Hittites? Is it the strange Christian family? Is it some of the other moderns? Or is it an Incubus? There is great casting this film. Suspenseful, scary at times and a lot of fun to watch.8/10

After her husband gets killed in a mysterious farming accident, Martha (a solid and sympathetic performance by the striking Maren Jensen) begins to fear for her life as well as the well being of her visiting friends Vicky (Susan Buckner, very perky and appealing) and Lana (a positively ravishing Sharon Stone right before she hit it big) due to the fact that her husband was a former member of a strict religious cult led by the fanatical Isaiah Schmidt (Ernest Borgnine in fine forceful'n'fearsome form).Acclaimed horror maven Wes Craven, who also co-wrote the offbeat and intriguing script with Matthew Barr and Glenn M. Benest, ably crafts a genuinely tense and creepy atmosphere, provides a flavorsome evocation of the peaceful rural region setting, offers an interesting exploration of the danger and damage wrought by both long kept secrets and deep-seated repression, and expertly stages a few bravura shock set pieces (Lana gets terrorized in a barn, a spider drops in Lana's mouth, a snake in Martha's bathtub that's unnervingly phallic and Freudian in its implications). The sturdy cast helps a lot: Jeff East as amiable farmboy John, Colleen Riley as the neurotic Melissa, Lois Nettleton as the flaky and overprotective Louisa Stohler, Michael Berryman as loopy man-child William Gluntz, and Lisa Hartman as Louisa's peculiar daughter Faith. Both Robert C. Jessup's sharp cinematography and James Horner's supremely spooky score are on the money effective and impressive.However, the story really falls apart with an unfortunate array of gross lapses in logic and glaring implausibilities in the last third, with an annoyingly abrupt and absurd "Carrie"-inspired stinger surprise appearance by an incubus tossing in an from out of left field supernatural element that's seriously at odds with the more reality-based events that occur before it. Moreover, said ending feels cheap and tacked-on, which reportedly it was. Close, but no cigar.

(Plot) This takes place in an Amish country, at a local farm, where a woman's husband is inexplicably killed by his own tractor. Weird things start to happen after it. Wes Craven sure had some balls, you know that? With Last House on The Left, Nightmare on Elm Street, and this one, Craven is responsible for unique horror films. He also reinvigorated his status in the 90's with New Nightmare & the Scream franchise, but now he's succumbed to making drivel like My Soul to Take (which I barely remember) but he did redeem himself a bit with the highly entertaining Scream IV. I wouldn't say I enjoyed this movie, but I did appreciate its boldness. This movie is seriously out there at times, and a bit too confusing as well. That's my main complaint with this one. It's a bit too hard to tell what's going on at times. The Amish setting is certainly eerie, and provides you with some excellent atmosphere. There isn't a ton of gore, but it does get nasty at times. The scene where Maren Jensen is taking a bath, and a snake pops up is rather frightening. Craven seems to have a thing with creepy things in Bath's. Probably because a bath is very relaxing, and terror while taking a bath isn't expected, usually. Maren Jensen does well in the lead role. She had a couple wooden moments, but nothing too bad. Sharon Stone is as hot as my feet would be if I walked on hot coals. She was very good and showed why she became such a big star. Earnest Borgnine's surreal performance is just plain creepy. The ending is all kinds of messed up as well. Final Thoughts: It's hard to rate this movie. I wasn't disengaged that's for sure, but it's a bit too weird at times. I'm gonna say it's fascinating enough for me to give this a warrant of recommendation. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I gotta give it credit for making me think6/10

A sadly overlooked item on director Wes Craven's resume, the rural horror flick "Deadly Blessing" benefits from its rustic setting, its spooky atmosphere, its show stopping shocks, and a fine cast. It stars Maren Jensen of the original 'Battlestar Galactica' as Martha, who's married to Jim (Douglas Barr), a former member of the Hittites, a strict religious sect who are described as "making the Amish look like swingers". Jim is killed in a mysterious incident involving his tractor, and when soon after Martha is visited by friends Lana (Sharon Stone) and Vicky (Susan Buckner), they all begin to be terrorized. Could the Hittites be responsible, or is there some real evil at work here? Location filming in Ohio and Texas adds a lot to this fairly creepy film, with Craven and a capable cast & crew making the most of the material. It's certainly an interesting enough look into a different culture, and of course prefigures the Harrison Ford vehicle "Witness" by a few years. It's got some nicely freaky twists and turns as it nears its end, and has an effective "anything goes" attitude. The best moments revolve around incidents with animals, one with a snake in the bathtub (some of the shots in this sequence would be revisited by Craven in "A Nightmare on Elm Street"), and another with a spider on the ceiling. James Horner composed the eerie music score that on occasion sounds somewhat like his "Humanoids from the Deep" score. The production design (by Jack Marty) and cinematography (by Robert C. Jessup) are first rate. The actors are all entertaining to watch, especially veterans Ernest Borgnine as domineering Hittite leader Isaiah and Lois Nettleton as friendly local Louisa Stohler. The three leading ladies are just gorgeous to look at. Also appearing are the always likable Jeff East ("Pumpkinhead") as Borgnines' son who ultimately defies the old man, Lisa Hartman (in the role that officially introduced her) as Louisas' daughter Faith, and Michael Berryman ("The Hills Have Eyes"), who's lots of fun as the trouble making William Gluntz; Percy Rodrigues, whose rich voice has graced many a trailer for a genre film, does the opening and closing narration. The ending may seem to come out of nowhere (and in fact the producers insisted on it, after the fact, claiming that the original ending wasn't punchy enough), but it does make some sense to this viewer. Some trivia worth noting is that the title 'Summer of Fear' (named after a TV movie Craven had done previously) appears on a theatre marquee. This film has been MIA on DVD & Blu-ray for so long that it's nice that Scream Factory finally stepped up to the plate to give it the respectful presentation that it deserves. Seven out of 10.