Evilspeak

Evilspeak
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Eric Weston
Produced by	Eric Weston Sylvio Tabet Gerald Hopman
Written by	Eric Weston Joseph Garofalo
Starring	Clint Howard R. G. Armstrong Joseph Cortese Claude Earl Jones
Music by	Roger Kellaway
Cinematography	Irv Goodnoff
Edited by	Charles Tetoni
Production company	Leisure Investment Company Coronet Film
Distributed by	Moreno Films, Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	August 22, 1981 (Japan) February 26, 1982 (USA)
Running time	89 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1,000,000

Evilspeak is a 1981 American horror film directed by Eric Weston and co-written by Weston and Joseph Garofalo. The film stars Clint Howard as a outcast cadet named Stanley Coopersmith, who frequently gets tormented by his mates and advisers at a military academy. Upon finding a book of black mass that belonged to the evil medieval Father Esteban, he taps through a computer to conjure Satan and summons spells and demons to get revenge upon his harassers.

The movie was one of the infamous "video nasties" banned in the United Kingdom in the 1980s.

Years ago during the Dark Ages, Satanic leader Father Estaban (Richard Moll) and his followers are approached by a church official on the shore of Spain, telling them that they are banished from Spain and denied God's grace unless they renounce Satan and their evil ways.

In the present, Stanley Coopersmith (Clint Howard) is young cadet at an American military academy. He remains as a social outcast who is bullied by his classmates due to him being an orphan, and treated unfairly by his instructors who believe him to be inept at everything. When he is punished for no clear reason by cleaning the church cellar, he finds a room belonging to Father Estaban which contains books of black magic along with Father Estaban's diary. He then uses his computer skills to translate the book from Latin into English, in which the translation describes Estaban as a Satanist and the book contains rituals for performing the Black Mass along with a promise by Estaban citing "I Will Return".

Waking up the late the next morning, Coopersmith finds his alarm clock unplugged and his clothing tied in knots courtesy of his belligerent classmates. This causes him to be tardy for morning classes, and his teacher writes him a punishment note to be taken to the school's Colonel headmaster in his office. When he's sent to the office, Coopersmith accidentally leaves the diary on the desk of the school secretary who hides it. While Coopersmith is being made to clean the stables as punishment for no reason, the office secretary begins to finger the jewels on the front of the diary. Trying to pry the jewels out of their settings causes the pigs in the stable to attack Coopersmith.

Coopersmith returns to his dormitory room to find his belongings scattered by his classmates again, and cannot find his book of black magic, assuming that his classmates stole it. He confronts them about the supposed theft at a local roller rink, but they deny knowledge of the book and he leaves. He then goes to the school's computer lab to perform more general research on Satanism even though his book is still missing. His allotted time in the lab runs out, and he is forced to leave with his research incomplete.