Heartland Of Darkness

When Paul (Dino Tripodis) moves to the small town of Copperton, Ohio, with his teenage daughter Christine (Sharon Klopfenstein), he’s hoping to be able to live the quiet life. A former employee of the Chicago Tribune, he buys up local newspaper The Chronicle and hires Shannon (Shanna Thomas), a shapely redhead who turns up on his doorstep claiming, no more convincingly, to have walked away from a job at the New York Times. Their first case concerns the mysterious death of local girl Mary, an accomplished student who had fallen for an outsider and planned to move away to go to college with him. Neither journalist is satisfied with the dismissive way the case is handled. There is a relaxed attitude to death here reminiscent of that in the village of Sandford in Hot Fuzz, though we are in the US South, and something differently sinister is afoot.

It centres on the Reverend Donovan (Nick Baldasare, who sleazes his way through the film like a low-rent James Spader). We know he’s up to something dodgy early on as we see him snogging the mysterious Julia in the local graveyard (Linnea Quigley, losing her upper garments around two minutes into the running time, which is fast even for her). Soon he’s inviting Paul and Christine to church for a sermon which they politely smile along with, not being very religious, whilst viewers will note that the words he uses make no specific reference to Jesus or the Abrahamic god. He is, of course, a Satanist, and the town is the stronghold of a cult.

With Paul and Shannon investigating the murder and corrupt cops struggling to put them off, the film heads towards an inevitable showdown. Meanwhile, Julia starts following Christine around and trying to seduce her to persuade her to join the cult. The days are ticking by in the run-up to a big ceremony and in the meantime, more people keep getting killed.

For all its silliness and the slapdash way some scenes are put together, there’s a good solid story here and the film rattles along at a healthy pace. If you’re a fan of camp horror or simply not too fussy, you’ll find plenty to entertain you. Importantly, it never laughs at its own jokes but plays it straight down the line, very effectively parodying some of the more serious screen entertainment of its era. Given the essential silliness of the Satanic panic on which it draws it feels wholly appropriate, and it’s a lot of fun.