In years to come when the complete and comprehensive history of the horror genre is recounted, the chances are that the limited contributions of the filmmaking duo of Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter will probably command little more than a brief footnote. Nevertheless, their contributions to the horror landscape of the eighties were not entirely insignificant as between 1982 and 1987 the pair, starting from meagre beginnings, contributed a trio of arguably derivative yet varyingly worthwhile little horror pictures which have since gone on to command minor cult status amongst genre aficionado's.
Starting out as two enthusiastic horror fans with filmmaking aspirations, Obrow and Carpenter got their start in the film industry when they allegedly came up with the lofty scheme of independently producing their own horror feature as a college project. Produced on a meagre budget estimated to be in the region of $90,000, the product of Obrow and Carpenter's ambition was the co-directed 1982 effort Pranks, also known by the infinitely catchier alternate title The Dorm That Dripped Blood. Focusing on a group of students who are picked off by an unseen killer after staying to clean out a long abandoned dormitory block over the festive break, Pranks was one of many low budget horror pictures of its period that were quite clearly formulated to cash in on the slasher movie craze of the early eighties which had been spurred on by the commercial success of both John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) and Sean S. Cunningham's Friday The 13th (1980). Neither the best nor the worst low budget early eighties slasher epic, in addition to launching the acting career of future soap actress Daphne Zuniga, Pranks would also achieve a degree of lasting infamy when its assortment of modestly gory slayings would lead to the uncut UK pre-certification video release being identified as a so-called Video Nasty.
As it turned out Pranks (or The Dorm That Dripped Blood if you please) was evidently successful enough to provide Obrow and Carpenter with their break in the film industry. Indeed, just a few short years on from the release of Pranks, the pair linked up once again to co-direct their sophomore horror effort The Power which the pair also co-wrote and co-edited with Obrow also acting as the films co-producer whilst Carpenter also handled cinematography duties. Whilst blessed with production values markedly superior to those of their aforementioned $90,000 debut, The Power was still a strictly low budget affair with Obrow and Carpenter moving away from the slasher shenanigan's of Pranks to make a film which focused on the arguably just as familiar horror theme's of demonic possession and ancient Aztec curse's. Distributed theatrically in the United States by prominent independent distributor Film Ventures International, the company spearheaded by notorious opportunist Edward L. Montoro, who acted as an executive producer, The Power didn't exactly set the box office on fire but it did see Obrow and Carpenter receive the "Best Screenplay" accolade at Italy's 1984 Fantafestival and subsequently went on to enjoy a healthy life span on home video.
Following The Power, Obrow and Carpenter would collaborate once again on the lab mutation runs amuck epic The Kindred (1987) starring David Allen Brooks and screen legend Rod Steiger. Easily the best received of the pair's trio of co-directed pictures, The Kindred has since gone on to become something of a cult favourite amongst horror aficionado's despite the alleged consternation of Steiger who, according to some sources, would later cite The Kindred as the worst film he ever participated in. However, The Kindred would also mark the end of Obrow and Carpenter's collaboration's with both men going their own separate ways afterwards. Obrow would subsequently go on to direct the poorly received Dean R. Koontz adaptation The Servants Of Twilight (1991), Legend Of The Mummy (1997) starring Louis Gossett Jr and more recently the made for television sci-fi/horror hybrid They Walk Among Us (2004) whilst also serving a professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. By contrast Stephen Carpenter would remain markedly less active within the film industry, with the 2001 effort Soul Survivors (2001) starring Eliza Dushku and Casey Affleck providing his sole solo directorial credit in the two and half decade's which have passed since the release of The Kindred.
The plot of The Power begins with an embittered college professor coming into possession of an ancient stone idol which contains the eerie, destructive power of Destacatyl, which despite sounding like something you might clean dentures with is actually an ancient, malefic Aztec deity said to have the ability to control the dark side of the human soul. Acting against the advice of his colleague's the professor attempts to harness the power of Destacatyl for his own ends, but ends up being destroyed by it.
Following the professor's macabre death, the idol passes into the hands of several other individuals, all of whom meet with a swift and violent end, until eventually the idol finds its may into the hands of mild-mannered journalist Jerry. Although his friend and journalistic colleague Sandy heaps scepticism on the idea, Jerry becomes obsessed with the idea that the idol holds the power to manipulate both people and material things. Cutting himself off from human contact, Jerry soon falls under the dark influence of Destacatyl and is transformed from a friendly, easy going, innocuous guy into a violent, ill-tempered maniac. Despite doing his best to fight off the evil forces trying to control his actions, Jerry eventually succumbs and, committing a string of brutal killings and when Sandy attempts to reach out to her friend she finds herself embroiled in a desperate, violent struggle for her life.
Although arguably the least well known of Obrow and Carpenter's trio of co-directed eighties horror pictures, The Power - in terms of its production values at least - marks a significant progression from the young duo's enjoyable yet decidedly rough around the edges debut feature Pranks. Indeed, whilst still obviously constrained by a limited budget, The Power has none of the stilted amateurishness about it which characterised Obrow and Carpenter's aforementioned initial foray into the horror genre. However, whilst Obrow and Carpenter had clearly honed their cinematic craft considerably in the few years that separated the release of Pranks and The Power, the fact of the matter is that The Power - judged purely on its own terms - stands as a singularly bland and unspectacular genre picture, which despite a fairly valiant effort never quite musters up enough strength to rise above the parapet of mediocrity.
The Power gets off to a particularly ponderous start with the opening twenty or so minutes of the film essentially amounting to little more than an extended, vaguely disjointed montage as the titular stone idol of Destacatyl changes hands several times between the self-serving and the over-inquisitive with each successive owners attempts to harness its eerie power leading to a predictably sticky end. Unfortunately these scenes are more silly than they are effective due to Obrow and Carpenter's reliance on goofy visual effects. A curmudgeonly college professor is impaled on a flag pole after being menaced by a combination of billowing dry ice and psychedelic flashing lights, whilst an unwitting janitor perishes unceremoniously when he is crushed beneath a gigantic breeze block. Only when the idol eventually comes into the possession (no pun intended) of socially awkward young journalist Jerry does The Power finally begin to assume some semblance of narrative focus, and even then it regrettably has to be said that its fortunes barely improve. The basic core premise of an initially likeable and innocuous male central protagonist suffering a radical and disturbing change in personality after succumbing to the will of evil forces which he cannot control is of course an eternally reliable horror genre staple, but one that unfortunately fails to ever really talk flight in this instance thanks to unambitiously half-hearted execution.
Jerry resultant transformation from mild-mannered if slightly obsessive, down on his luck nice guy journalist into a maniacal, clammy, slobbering demonically possessed, woman-beating killer occurs far too suddenly for the films own good. There's no gradual change in personality, Jerry just seems to transform from ineffectual weakling to raving misogynist psychopath in the blink of an eyelid and that alone makes his ensuing reign of terror, for want of a better term, feel contrived and unconvincing in the extreme. Meanwhile in addition to eschewing the gradual approach their story cries out for, Obrow and Carpenter also undercut the films potential effectiveness with their disheartening lack of any real ambition. What is the power hoping to achieve via the possession of Jerry? Why does it not simply destroy him in the same way it id the others who tried to harness it? Aside from some vague throwaway hooey about Destacatyl controlling "the dark side of the human soul" the answers to these glaring questions are never even broached. Instead following Jerry's possession, The Power quickly degenerates into a glorified, readily familiar maniac on the loose picture, albeit one with some superficial evil ancient Aztec idol bells on.
The ensuing mayhem is not a million thematic miles away in all honesty from the slasher territory Obrow and Carpenter had already explored in Pranks, as Jerry succumbs to the evil forces attempting to control his actions and subsequently sets about manacling and killing a succession of disinteresting, predominantly female supporting protagonist's. Whilst serviceable enough, the climactic third of The Power has a rushed feel about it, as if Obrow and Carpenter having built up to Jerry's possessed rampage then lost all interest in the resolution and embarked on a race for the finishing line at the expense of tension and suspense. Indeed, aside from an engagingly nasty moment in which Jerry feeds the hand of one screaming victim into a waste disposal unit, the climactic scenes have a distinctly flat feel to them which precludes any real viewer involvement in the fate of either Jerry himself or any of the sketchily characterised supporting players unfortunate enough to find themselves in his path as his possession takes hold.
On the bright side The Power is at least held together and kept from sliding entirely into the mire of risibility by the committed performance of Warren Lincoln as Jerry. Indeed, Lincoln brightens up otherwise derivative material by chewing up the scenery with an appropriately tortured conviction as the films latter stages call for him to don grotesquely pasty, mottled facial make-up which bears a perhaps not entirely coincidental similarity to the make-up donned by the demonically possessed in Sam Raimi's seminal The Evil Dead (1982), a film that The Power arrived hot on the coattails of. Following The Power the engaging Lincoln would appear in a supporting role in Samson Aslanian and John Hopkins' horror film cum thriller Torment (1986) which Stephen Carpenter acted as a cinematographer on before vanishing from acting. Unfortunately the remainder of the cast do not approach their roles with Lincoln's apparent enthusiasm, with top-billed Susan Stokey, who subsequently appeared in Fred Olen Ray's The Tomb (1986) alongside Cameron Mitchell, John Carradine and Sybil Danning in addition to a clutch of other largely forgotten late eighties genre efforts, as Jerry's disbelieving friend and colleague Sandy and the majority of the films other supporting players proving to be serviceable yet bland. In fact in that regard it's really not entirely unfair to say that they are a symptom of what's wrong with the film as a whole.
Aside from Lincoln's spirited lead performance, the only real points of merits The Power possesses tend to be technical with Obrow, Carpenter and their colleague's intermittently delivering moments which make impressive use of evocative visual and lighting effects and an effectively atmospheric score which are all frankly rather wasted on the film itself. With this in mind it's perhaps not the learn that for a couple of the films behind the camera personnel The Power served at least in part as a platform to bigger things. Christopher Young who composed the score for both this film and Pranks would subsequently work on a number of other eighties genre pictures such as A Nightmare On Elm Street II: Freddy's Revenge (1985), Hellraiser (1987), it's sequel Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), The Fly II (1989) and has since moved into the mainstream whilst still maintaining a sense of his genre roots, contributing scores to the likes of The Grudge (2004), The Exorcism Of Emily Rose (2005), Ghost Rider (2007), Spider-Man 3 (2007) and Drag Me To Hell (2009). Meanwhile Matthew W. Mungle who worked on The Power and Obrow and Carpenter's subsequent picture The Kindred (1987) in a special effects capacity would also ascend into the mainstream, contributing special make-up effects and prosthetics to numerous major studio productions. Prior to his work on The Power, Mungle would contribute special effects and make-up to both Jeff Lieberman's backwoods horror favourite Just Before Dawn (1981) and Ulli Lommel's The Devonsville Terror (1983) and to give you an idea of how dramatically his career has progressed since Mungle's credits in the last five years have included make-up and prosthetics work on films such as X-Men: The Last Stand (2005), Rocky Balboa (2006), Spider-Man 3 (2007), Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008), Tropic Thunder (2008) and Vampires Suck (2010) to name just a few.
So just to reiterate in closing, The Power is a film which suggests to me that whilst Obrow and Carpenter had developed their cinematic craft considerably since Pranks, they had still learned little about the much finer art of exciting and captivating the viewer as they take a potentially engaging premise and proceed to develop it into an efficiently executed and at times visually striking, but ultimately derivative and desperately indifferent film. Flatly directed and for the most part flatly enacted, The Power sorely lacks that essential spark of inspiration and as such emerges as inoffensive yet readily forgettable guff. Unless you are someone who, not unlike me, derived a degree of enjoyment from either Pranks and The Kindred and therefore feels a need to check out Obrow and Carpenter's other collaborative effort, there's really nothing to see here.
Not Recommended.
To date The Power has yet to be released officially on DVD. However, for those wishing to see it there is the option of tracking down either the old 18 certificated UK VHS release from Entertainment In Video or the US NTSC format VHS release from Vestron Video. Used copies of the US tape in particular turn up quite regularly online for fairly inexpensive prices.
