User Reviews

Unhappy with the output of films coming out of Hollywood and determined to show he could do it better or just as well, Early Owensby built his own studio in Shelby, North Carolina in the 1970s. His studio would go on to make a number of low budget films that filled drive-ins and grindhouses across the country. Among the films that were made there was an unusual horror piece called A DAY OF JUDGEMENT, now available from Severin.

The film is less horror feature and more morality tale. It takes place in a small Southern town in 1920. Reverend Cage (Charles Reynolds) is about to leave the town, his flock having diminished to just three old women. Feeling he has failed them he has called for a new leader for the church. As he leaves the town and is about to cross a covered bridge he feels a cold breeze and watches as the new church leader makes his way into town.

We then get to meet the people of this small town. There is Mrs. Fitch, an elderly woman who likes to drink all too much. This is your typical old biddy who threatens the local children who come anywhere near her precious garden. This eventually leads her to poisoning the children's pet goat. She berates her servant who leaves her tired of her ways.

Then there is George Clay, a young man who runs the service station his parents own. He longs to be rid of having to take care of his parents, ignoring the fact that they've built this business in the hopes of providing him a means to live when they are gone.

There is Mr. Sharpe, the unscrupulous town banker. Not only did he refuse to help Rev. Cage he has also done wrong to a local farmer named Morgan. Morgan was left funds gifted to him by neighbor Jess Hill to purchase seed so he can keep his farm. But Sharpe refuses to acknowledge the loan and forecloses on Morgan.

Then there is Ruby Kaylor. Ruby is married to the owner of the local clothing store, Harvey Kaylor. But she's only married Harvey for his money. On the side she's seeing his employee Kenny. They have a weekend tryst planned at her home while Harvey is away but he returns earlier than expected.

Lastly there is Charlie Milford who is certain that his wife is having an affair with his superior Sid Martin. He begins to harass Martin in various ways until he finally confront him with a loaded gun.

Each of these people will have to atone for their actions. That judgement will be delivered by the new Reverend, the grim reaper in disguise. And judgement will be harsh.

The film moves along at a slow pace and the look of the film is honestly a bit low level. It feels like a production from a local community theater rather than a feature film. The performances are all lacking and the story, while having a nice twist at the end, feels kind of predictable. For myself it wasn't entertaining enough for me to recommend it but I am certain there are fans out there who will love this offering.

Severin Films is offering the film with a newly scanned 2k print from the IP for the first time ever. Extras include "The Atheist's Sins" a commentary by author Stephen Thrower and "Tales of Judgement" and interview with filmmaker Worth Keeter and writer Thom McIntyre.

Just recently at the place where I work I changed my shift from the eight to five days to the ten to six nights, simply because it pays 36% more money. The only problem was that I just couldn't get to sleep when I returned home at half past six in the morning. After two weeks of mind numbing insomnia and wandering around like an extra from Zombie Creeping Flesh, I finally gave up and went to the doctors. Even though I begged and pleaded, she told me that she wouldn't risk giving me any medication because it's addictive and all I should do is try watching a relaxing film or listening to some mellow music. And so like an angel sent from heaven, I found the answer in A Day of Judgement – a bizarre and virtually forgotten slasher flick that's also a struggling insomniacs dream. It arrived on my doormat around four months ago and right up until I took the time to write this review, I had never even got past the thirty four minute mark! When you consider the fact that I bought it for around £3 and a seven day packet of sleep aid would cost me around £7.50 – watching this every morning has saved me a fortune.

It tells the tale of a small Southern town in the 1920s, where the local church congregation has been reduced to three elderly pensioners and the Reverend. Pastor Cage blames himself for the lack of attendance and the townsfolk's unethical attitude. Unable to come to terms with the fact that the villagers would rather live in sin than hear his weekly sermons, the priest packs his horse and cart and heads for the city. On his way out of town, he passes a cloaked figure shouldering a scythe and realises that it's too late for him to save the sinners from a gory punishment.

There's really not too much to put in to words about this one, simply because nothing actually happens. It's best described as a redneck soap opera with a cloaked killer lurking around just for good measure. Over the 101 minutes runtime we are treated to the town's residents 'sinning' and trying their hardest to look like they're interested in the dire script, whilst the plot moves along at the pace of a snail crossing a drawbridge. The story revolves around an unappealing group of characters, including a greedy bank manager played by William T. Hicks, who true slasher fans may recognise as the lard-ass sheriff from Death Screams. Also on the cast list we have a mechanic who wants to send his mother and father to the old people's home so that he can use their house for his debauchery. We also have an adulterous wife and her lover, an elderly moaner and finally a paranoid loaner that believes that his ex-wife has cheated on him. Ho-hum. Each of the heinous cast members gets twenty or so minutes to show why they should be punished by the grim reaper, before he turns up and puts the viewer out of his misery in various boring ways. I'm probably making the movie sound a lot more interesting than it actually is, but you should note that the killer is only on screen for thirty seconds tops and aside from one hokey decapitation, the 'horror' is a plot point that seems to have slipped by the wayside very early in to the production. Just when you think that you have survived the worst that this mongoloid dog has to offer, up pops the horrendously cliché-ridden ending. Obviously I wouldn't spoil it for you here, but suffice to say, it'll have you cringing in disbelief.

One thing that did interest me was the use of period costumes, horse and carts and automobiles. These must've eaten heavily into the budget and it's inexplicable that they didn't invest funds in a stronger cast selection. I'm sure that they would have made more in box office receipts had they drafted in a stronger group of actors to handle the script. There was one or two inadvertently amusing 'bad movie scenes' that brought a smile to my lips on occasion. I especially liked the part when Ruby danced to some Glen Miller-like 20s pop, blissfully unaware how stupid that she looked. But unfortunately, even if it had been Carmen Elektra belly dancing in a see-through Arsenal football kit, I still don't think it could've saved this movie from my persecution.

Slow, boring and blessed with acting that is at times nauseating; A Day of Judgement should be avoided by one and all. To call this a horror film is almost a redefinition of the word. In fact the most horrific thing about Reynolds's slasher is the fact that it was given clearance by the producers in the first place. Director Christopher Reynolds would return to the genre 8 years later with yet another slasher throwaway, the awful Halloween clone 'Offerings'. Ironically enough, this was released in the UK as Stormbringer, which makes a damn site more sense than the US title. Amusingly, the'day of judgement' takes place over a week or more! Recommended only to those that have trouble sleeping

This film could have been so much better, and it starts off with an interesting premise and some very scary moments, but quickly goes downhill as it becomes way too talky and forecloses on its promise to deliver some real chills. The best moment comes early on in the film (and much later towards the end), introducing the character of garden obsessed older woman who is rude to local children and her loyal black maid, wrongfully accusing her of stealing. Of course this old lady has a secret of her own (love of drink), so she's quite hypocritical in her judgment of others. When she finds herself alone late one night, she feels something weird going on in her garden and ventures out only to face her final curtain. It's a truly scary moment, and I hoped that it would lead to other similar scenes of hypocritical critical characters getting their comeuppance for using their alleged reverence towards God as an excuse to criticize others for their Christian shortcomings. One of those men is an older Orson Welles lookalike, a pompous blowhard and bully, very similar to the Lionel Barrymore character from "It's a Wonderful Life".

Seeing someone pulled down to hell by hands coming up from the ground gave me shivers, and I'm glad I did not watch this one before I went to bed. The flames that surround the character return for others, and other than a few moments of some awesome gory retribution at the end, with the presence of the grim reaper (possibly the minister who appears in the opening moments) and a brimstone castle of damnation which Is followed by a unique twist. This had the potential of being quite unique and eerie, with "Dante's Inferno" references, but the slow middle sequence really is detrimental to the film overall. I wonder if this had some church involved with its message of hypocrisy, but that would havd to be a liberal church for sure. For the most part, the cast is pretty good and everyone plays their role sincerely without their tonguing cheek, seeming much more professional than the obvious budget would allow. The thrills outweigh the snores, but it's best to be wide awake when starting the film from scratch.

Nor is it The Iceman Cometh.

It's not quite F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Or Masque of the Red Death.

It's certainly not Tennessee Williams (well, maybe Milk Train).

I imagine it like a rightfully unpublished short story from a teenage Flannery O'Connor that some evangelicals found and made into a community theater morality play. Then they glommed onto the slasher craze of the early 80s in an attempt to save some souls. But they filmed it through a Giallo lens with a thorough dose of Corman.

It's rather heavy-handed on the drama. Light on the horror. There's a couple of twists. The second of which is a head scratcher. If the new pastor is the Grim Reaper as is implied from his sermon, wouldn't that mean that all of them returning to church is some form of purgatorial penance or infernal damnation? That's a bizarre mixed message for a film purporting to be a religious fear piece on redemption. But that gives the movie a depth and ambiguity that I don't think the filmmakers intended.

I side on the movie having an overtly pious narrative that was inept in its theme and resolution. Still, tje movie had an amateur atmosphere, weird aethetic and earnest gusto to its vignettes that made it somewhat watchable.

The 1920's. A mysterious sinister figure dressed in a black robe and brandishing a scythe arrives in a small Southern town to exact harsh punishments on various sinners.

Director Charles Reynolds relates the absorbing oddball story at a deliberate pace, presents a flavorsome evocation of the period setting, and delivers several strong moments of spot-on creepy gloom-doom atmosphere. Tom McIntyre's thoughtful script not only offers a colorful array of deliciously detestable characters, but also provides a strong and provocative central message about sin, redemption, and second chances.

Moreover, it's acted with zest by a game no-name cast, with especially stand-out contributions from William T. Hicks as greedy banker Sharpe, Helene Tryon as nasty old bat Mrs. Fitch, and Brownlee Davis as the angry Charlie. The deadly serious Christian aesthetic gives this movie its own unique identity. Worth a watch for horror fans looking for something way out of the ordinary.

Produced by the same Earl Ownsby that made the truly oddball Tales of the Third Dimension in 3D, this Wilmington, North Carolina curiosity makes the strange step of being one part slasher, one part Christian morality play. And man, what a strange tasting cocktail that is*.

Director C. D. H. Reynolds and writer Tom McIntyre put together this tale of a 1930s small town that is packed with lust, corruption and sin that has choked the God out of the last preacher, sending him running away into the night.

Now, a mysterious figure wielding a scythe arrives just as he leaves and everyone that has done anything has to pay - not only with their lives, but with their souls.

Everyone in town has something to be ashamed of. Mr. Sharpe, the banker, is out to take everything he can from everyone. Drunken Mrs. Fitch only cares about her flowers and will poison animals if they get too close. Ruby only married her husband to become rich, as everything about him is old, even his smell, but she doesn't care for anyone, even the shop assistant that she's been screwing behind her husband's back. And then there's George, who conspires with the banker to commit his parents and finally leave this town behind.

This feels like the lost Charles B. Pierce movie we never got or the slasher they'd allow you to watch in Sunday school or a junior high production of Our Town that the drama teacher rewrote to slam book the entire town that he knew would never accept him and that he'd never escape. All filtered through with nightmarish conjurings of a foggy and blue lit reaper just walking from victim to victim and man, I love blue fog.

It's a slow moving movie - and you know how those work for me - in the best of ways, a deranged message film that makes me leap with glee when the end credits start with the Ten Commandments. Bravo, people. Bravo.

According to Stephen Thrower - who is on the Severin blu discussing this - Reynolds went back to teaching and was an atheist. He also worked on Carnival Magic, which makes a lot more sense.

*I can only think of one other movie that attempts this, The Redeemer: Son of Satan.

PS: A lot of the cast also shows up in Death Screams, which Arrow just put out.

Set in a rural U. S. farming community during the 1920s, this preachy low-budget regional outing involves an angel of judgment(depicted as a scythe-wielding harvest reaper) bringing forth wrath upon a group of morally and spiritually abraded individuals...a greedy banker, a curmudgeonly old lady, a spiteful drunk, and a scheming adulterous couple.

Despite the drowsy pace, A DAY OF JUDGMENT is actually fairly well appointed for such a scrimpy project. With closer than usual attention paid to period-setting details(the wardrobe, sets, and cars are overall pretty true to the era), there is at least moderate success in creating an interesting atmosphere to the goings-on, and the players(likely recruited from supper-clubs and playhouse theaters) perform sufficiently. Unfortunately, the entire project boils over with the declamatory religious hyperbole of a Jack Chick comic tract, especially in the final curtain...an "inspirational" finale which sort of quashes the film's horror mien, and reveals its true religious crusade. It's one of the better-known entries in the Christian horror microgenre, which also includes such "winners" as SATAN WAR(1979), THE ENEMY(1974), THE GRIM REAPER(1976), THE RAPTURE(1972), THE WEDNESDAY CHILDREN(1973), SIX-HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SIX(1972), and YEARS OF THE BEAST(1981). In most cases, these films were church-funded and shown exclusively in religious forums, and subsequently picked up by minor video distributors who deceptively marketed them as straightforward horror titles.

A DAY OF JUDGMENT is nominally passable entertainment, but in all honesty, it should be offered door-to-door by ladies in matronly dresses.

3.5/10.