Starring: Ronny Cox, Bibi Besch, Paul Clemens, Don Gordon, R.G. Armstrong, Katherine Moffat    

Directed by: Philippe Mora     Written by: Tom Holland

The Story: DVD's are a blessing and a curse in a way. There are some titles that I want so badly I'll pay over twenty bucks for it. Usually its a movie that's considered such a good flick that I feel that twenty plus bucks is worth it. Then there's old as B-movies that sell for only 5 or six dollars...and they're usually perfect for Infernal Judgment so I figure the cheapness of the disc justifies buying it. And since my return to the USA where I have access to lotsa malls and generally well stocked PX....man, I've bought a LOT of CD's since the plane hit ground.

This movie is one of those flicks I saw in the mid eighties when it was on HBO. Its not really racy or anything, but the final part of this movie makes it the kinda flick that would have made my grandmother cancel our cable if she caught me watching it. Read on, my droogs, and all shall be made clear.

Eli and Caroline MacCleary are newlyweds in 1964, driving through Mississippi. Their car gets stuck in the mud on a dark, wooded road so Eli tells his wife to wait in the car while he walks back to a gas station they passed to get a tow truck. Yeah, sure....like she's gonna be safe. Watching that part made me chuckle. My wife would have said "Screw that, I'm coming with you!" before she waited in the car in the middle of Mississippi on an unlit road in the middle of the woods. But then again, as a black man I wouldn't have been walking around in Mississippi in the middle of night in 1964 on a dark unlit road. I'd have pushed the damned car back onto the road with the strength of ten Grinches plus two.

And I'd have been right. Because no sooner is Eli out of sight a monster comes out of the woods and rapes Caroline! The movie then moves 17 years into the future. Caroline has given birth to Michael, a product of her terrible experience. But the teenage boy is sick with an unknown genetic disorder and the doctors can't help him. Caroline and Eli decide that they have to return to the small town of Nioba where she was raped to see if they can find out who Michael's real father is, and hopefully the answer to his sickness.

The MacCleary's find that town of Nioba has a secret. The mayor, the newspaper editor Edwin (I guess he's the whole staff, since he's the only one we see in his office), the mortician, Dexter and a violent bastard, Horace, are all related in some way or another and they know about the rapist. Eli and Caroline can sense that something is being hidden from them, something involving a man named Lionel Curwin. According to Sheriff Bill Poole....who was a deputy back in 1964, Lionel was killed by something or someone. His body was ripped to shreds and his house burnt down. But they never found out the truth.

Meanwhile Michael leaves the hospital on his own (a habit he has all through the flick) and drives to Nioba. He enters a cellar in the middle of nowhere, (The remains of Lionel Curwin's house) speaking to someone or something that's not really there. Then he goes straight to Edwin's house and kills him, which, to be honest was something of a relief. Seeing an old fat guy in his undershirt sure ain't my idea of fun...it is scary though. Delirious, Michael passes out in the yard of Horace Platt, and is found by his daughter, the beautiful Amanda. Amanda calls for the doctor I guess, because the next thing we know Michael's sleeping in the hospital under the care of kindly Dr. Schoonmaker. You know, my hometown has gotta be bigger than Nioba is by a lot....and the nearest hospital is like ten miles away. A little dinky town like Nioba has a hospital? There aren't even enough people to man it properly since Michael seems to come and go as he pleases. The next day he shows up full of vim and vigor at Amanda's door to thank her for helping him. The two teenagers take a walk in the woods near Black Pine Bog, where they start making out. You go, boy! Unfortunately, Amanda's dog digs up a hand nearby and ruins the moment. (ain't that the way it always is fellas? You finally get the girl alone somewhere and her dog shows up carrying a severed body part and the romance goes "poof"!)

Michael is taken back to the hospital, but lots of body parts are found in the bog when the sheriff and others begin investigating. They find that lots of people who were supposedly buried in the graveyard are actually interred in the bog instead. Meanwhile Michael sneaks out of the hospital again and kills Dexter the mortician and some local drunk. Eventually he warns Amanda that she has to get out of town before something bad happens to her. (Michael keeps snaking into her house, which is kind of goofy. First she seems to forgive him for not once, but twice sneaking into her house! At night! Secondly, Horace, Amanda's father has threatened to kill him if he does it again...and thirdly, Michael attacks Amanda but stops himself  and is taken back to the hospital. You'd think by this point Amanda might be thinking he ain't boyfriend material)

Eventually we get to the part where things start to get interesting. Back in the hospital, Dr. Schoonmaker discovers that some weird metamorphosis is taking place in Michael's body. The Mayor (actually, everyone calls him "Judge, but he's both the Judge and the Mayor of Nioba....talk about absolute power) and Horace decide that they have to whack Michael in order to keep their secret. They arrive at the hospital in time to see what, back in the 80's were probably really good special effects. Michael turns into some kind of Bug Man! Not as convincing as Brundlefly, but I think he's supposed to be a cicada. You know, I can't really explain this with the skill of say, Jabootu or Dr. Freex, but I'll try.....

There's some kind of mumbo jumbo dialogue about how some guy named Billy Connors used to talk about changing like a cicada. For those of you who don't know, a cicada is like, a big fat locust. Every seven years or so they would come out of hibernation in my home town and there'd be literally millions of them. They make a helluva racket too. They also will eat damn near every leaf they can find. I have no idea what they turn into, but I remember finding their ugly husks stuck to trees after they did change. That's about all I know about the darn things. Anyway, Lionel Curwin was the Mayor's brother, and related to Dexter and Horace, and Edwin. He was married to someone named Sarah, but he caught her foolin' around with Billy Connors. In revenge he locked Billy in his basement until he almost starved and killed Sarah. Then he gave Billy Sarah's body to eat. In time he started feeding Billy the bodies of people in the mortuary with Dexter's help. When the Mayor...and supposedly Edwin and Horace found out, they covered up the scandal, and got rid of Lionel ( I guess they killed him, I don't know....the gist of this story is from the Mayor who's forced to tell the truth while scared out of his mind and it doesn't make sense to me anyhow) They left Billy chained in the basement when they burned Lionel's house down. But Billy escaped, somehow becoming a Cicada-Man from eating all of that human flesh. Don't ask me how that works....really don't. That's when he broke out, raped Caroline and then returned to the cellar ruins to die. Somehow being a Cicada-Man allowed him to impregnate Caroline so he could be reborn in Michael and get back at the Curwins.

As a Cicada-Man, Michael goes after the remaining Curwins and then to fulfill his Cicada destiny he seeks out Amanda...who did have the common sense to get the hell out of dodge, only she wrecked her car on the road. This is the part that if my grandma saw it she'd have sold our TV....Cicada-Man rapes Amanda. Its not a long scene or anything, but he rips her clothes off while she's knocked out and does the deed. And its not just boobs you get to see. He rips off her panties and well, you get a pretty good look. Its kind of creepy, really. Eli, the Sheriff and the others catch up to him and Cicada-Man, spent from his night of murder and...uh, kinky insect sex, uses his last bit of strength to try and kill Eli. Caroline is forced to grab a rifle and blow his head off at close range. Kind of like the death of Brundlefly, only not anywhere near as cool. With the monster dead, the cycle will continue I guess when Amanda gives birth to Cicada-Man's progeny. At least if she's too stupid to have an abortion. Keep in mid, Amanda woke up while Cicada-Man was doing his thing to her so she knows a monster screwed her. (I know that sounds kind of hard hearted....I apologize for it too. Rape isn't a fun thing to talk about, even in a cheesy movie.)

Without looking it up, I can tell you that at least three....and probably more of the actors in this movie have been on Star Trek in its various incarnations. Logan Ramsey played Edwin Curwin and also the evil guy in the original trek episode "Bread and Circuses", where they were on a planet that was like a modern day Roman Empire. Ronnie Cox, who was both the evil Dick Jones in Robocop and the evil boss guy in Total Recall was Eli. He also temporarily replaced Captain Picard on the Enterprise when he played Starfleet Captain Jellico on Star Trek: The Next Generation. And the late Bibi Besch, here known as Caroline, was Doctor Carol Marcus, the old flame of Captain Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  That's off the top of my head. I think Katherine Moffat that was Amanda was on Trek once too, but I'm too lazy to bother looking it up.

Best Lines:  “He ain't my father...Billy Connors is my daddy!” - Michael lets Eli and Caroline know that he knows he's not really Eli's son.

Are you kidding me?

1.) The MacCleary's must be pro-life, because I don't understand why Caroline didn't have an abortion. Granted she was unconscious during her rape so she may be unaware that the rapist was a giant Cicada-Man, but still.

2.) When Michael begins to go coo coo for cocoa puffs and kills Edwin, Edwin mistakes him as the grocery delivery boy. Now, I don't know about you, but I've never ever been anywhere where they deliver groceries to your house. Maybe in the 30's or 40's but in the 80's? Why is Edwin having his food delivered anyway? He's not an invalid. Why can't he just take his ass to the store and get his own damned food?

3.) I was going to say I'm impressed with Michael's suaveness as he courts Amanda, but I'm more concerned with the hospital in Nioba. He's supposed to be sick, yet he just up and leaves the hospital, with no trouble at all and goes to her house! Doesn't anyone see him leaving the hospital!? We really need Health Care Reform in this country people!

4.) As if this movie didn't have enough ties to Star Trek.....In Phil Farrand's Nitpicker's Guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine he tells of how in one episode Dr. Bashir makes the startling discovery that a man died of a phaser blast although the body has been reduced to a small pile of ashes in a plasma vent. (Look, if you're not a Trek fan, don't even try to understand that....) That, Farrand, contends, is like finding out a guy died of a gunshot wound after the body has been cremated. Well, In this movie we have an ancestor of the brilliant 24th doctor. Dr. Schoonmaker picks up a bone of a skeleton that was found not 20 seconds before and tells the sheriff whose body it is instantly because he recognizes the stainless steel hip joint he put in! Keep in mind, this must have been a joint put in more than 17 years ago! The damned bone is STILL covered in mud, for crying' out loud! Its dark out, too, yet this guy can tell that just by holding the bone for what....five seconds!? He's either Griswald, Kreskin, or Sherlock Holmes! If I were the Sheriff I'd think the doctor had something to do with it!

5.) What the fuck is up with the cicada thing in this movie? I mean, spiders have been done to death in movies, but I'd fear a spider monster more than I would a cicada! They're annoying with that damn buzzing they make in numbers and they can really do a number on plants and trees in great multitudes, but they don't to my knowledge, bite, sting or have poison. Couldn't they have thought of another insect that would be scary!? I'm betting a lot of people don't even know what a cicada is! I've been around them and I barely know what they are! Why not a dragonfly? Sure, they're not dangerous or anything, but a dragonfly man seems a little scarier than a Cicada man! Geez....what's next? Attack of the Awful Aphid Man!? Plus I don't get how Billy became the first Cicada-Man anyway! Michael breaks through a wall in the city jail to get to the Mayor....was he bitten by a radioactive Cicada....does he now have the proportionate strength of a Cicada!? (I'm betting that Stan Lee probably wrote a story of the Amazing Cicada-Man in the 60's and then over a few cold ones Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko said "You know Stan, maybe we should make him a Spider-Man instead."....thus history in comics was made.)

Nudity and Sex: Caroline is raped by the 1st Cicada Man, but no nudity is seen. A dead body of a woman is seen so you get to see her boobs. Amanda is raped by the 2nd Cicada-Man and you pretty much see her nude the deed being done.

Huh?:

Edwin's demise is a strange one. He thinks Michael's the delivery boy, fine. But then he offers to cook some dinner for both of them. Right. That's like telling the kid that works for Domino's to sit down and share your pizza. Um, well, I guess if you were a really lonely and generous person you'd do that, but Edwin seems like neither. Besides, he should have realized something was wrong....its a small town and he's NEVER seen Michael before. Michael doesn't say one word, which puts him in a weirdo category right away. (If the Domino's kid didn't say a single word while delivering your pizza but just had a weird ass glazed over look I doubt you'd invite him to stay) And what delivery boy would want to eat the meat that a fat old guy with a dirty undershirt on just touched and put his fist into without washing his hands. You wanna scare me, have that guy cook my dinner. Ick!

After body parts are found in Black Pine Bog, Eli seems to be with the sheriff all of the time. Excuse me, but how exactly is Eli part of this investigation? There are no clear ties to Eli's problems with Michael...(if there were they'd have locked Michael up) But Eli seems to be a part of the team by default. How's that work?

Speaking of Eli, its never said what the guy does for a living but he must have boffo medical insurance and a large wad of cash since he never even mentions working, his wife obviously doesn't work and he can spend all of his time in Nioba looking for clues for a nearly 20 year old rape case while paying for hospital bills for Michael. I wanna know what his job is so I can get me one!

Horace isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer of course, but he's not taking too much of a chance by threatening to kill Michael in front of the sheriff and other witnesses. Michael's just snuck into Amanda's bedroom! How this supposedly very sick kid keeps getting dressed and out of the hospital is beyond me, but if I caught some teenaged boy in my teenaged daughter's room in the middle of the night, well, I wouldn't kill him, but an ass kicking is definitely a possibility if he ain't the tooth fairy or something.

Frightened out of his wits by Michael as the Cicada-Man, the mayor tells Sheriff Poole to lock him in the jail where he'll be safe. WHY DO PEOPLE ALWAYS SAY THAT IN MOVIES!? Being locked in a jail cell with no means of escape is not what I'd call safe! You can't run away if any defensive measures fail in that predicament.

Check out Schoonmaker's get up. He looks like he's on his way to a Colonel Sanders audition.

When Amanda awakens on the road is pursued by Cicada-Man I thought to myself "No, you dumbbell, don't run into the woods....get back in the car! Maybe it'll start." Then I remembered its a movie car. The monsters coming so its not going to start. In a monster movie a brand new Mercedes won't start if the monster is after you. Then I thought, "Hey, maybe the woods is a good idea! You can hide!" But then I remember its a movies woods...and an 80's movie at that...which means no matter where you hide or haw fast you run, the monster can walk and still keep pace with you. But Amanda is running at least. But then I remembered she's a movie chick. So she has to fall down, of course. Chicks in 80's movie ALWAYS fall down when the monster chases them. Fine, though. Most people would just get the hell up and keep bookin'. But then I remember that movie chicks almost ALWAYS pass out when they fall down. You know, I've fallen off of a small cliff, a truck, a roof and down some stairs and with the exception of the cliff I got up rather quickly. (I had a concussion from the cliff, but luckily the girl I was with was a nurse.) Amanda fell down on same leaves. (maybe she hit her head on something, I couldn't tell) but damn it, she must have a soft noggin, because she didn't fall hard.

The Final Judgment: Despite the completely nonsensical nature of Cicada-Man, I remember thinking this movie was pretty creepy as a kid. Its not a bad flick for the time it was made. Trust me, there are a lot of really bad 80's horror movies, much worse than this. It was fun to watch just for the crazy appearance of Cicada-Man. Man, I can't get over that one. And I don't even think he looked like a freaking Cicada! The Infernal denizens laughed their little red asses off thus I give this movie four devil heads. If you get some buddies together you can have a real laugh riot with this one.