You won't be disappointed!

As Good As It Gets

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Totally bonkers traveling evangelist Sister Sarah Jane (robustly overplayed with lip-smacking relish by Clara O'Hara) embarks on a deranged holy mission to rid the world of sex-obsessed men. After befriending naive, but wealthy lesbian Penny (a winningly sincere performance by pretty and busty brunette Sandra Henderson), the pair decide to embark on a crazed killing spree in Hollywood, California. Writer/director Walt Davis illustrates in the most gloriously lurid manner imaginable how religious fervor can directly lead to homicidal dementia by piling on plenty of grotty gore and seamy quasi-pornographic soft-core sex. The grungy locations, off-kilter story, and overall pervasively loopy sensibility further enhance the bizarre charm of this singular 70's exploitation oddity. Moreover, O'Hara has an absolute field day with her juicy role; she's a total hoot to behold as she sounds off on the wickedness of engaging in pleasurable sex and sings gospel songs with infectious go-for-it gusto. Legendary porn stud John Holmes makes a fleeting appearance as a pool player in a low-rent bar. Manuel Conde's rough unpolished cinematography provides an appropriately scroungy look. Dan Goodman's jaunty honky-tonk score hits the spirited spot. Good trashy grindhouse fun.

Unusual, sex/slasher/comedy, with evangelical theme. In truth the sex is fairly well done, let down only by the low lighting (and frequency), the bloody scenes are also not bad and it really is amusing now and again. Sister Sara is a self styled 'anti- pleasurable sex' evangelist who enlists another to help lure men and then do them in, because they are so evil. This is all made watchable though by decent use of original music and hymn singing(!) sometimes accompanied by tambourine thumping. It is particularly impressive at the start and we see the girls on the street but it looses it's way a little two thirds in when we reckon it's all over but it then steps up a gear and finishes with a flourish. If you think this review is a bit muddled, you should see the film. Fun to be had nonetheless.

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Not many films that combine gore and sex open with a biblical quote- namely "Beware of false prophets,which come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravening vultures"- then again Evil Come,Evil Go isn't just any film. It's the story of diminutive Southern belle Sister Sara Jane Butler (Cleo O'Hara). Part evangelist, part talentless country and western singer, and all round basket case Sara Jane preaches on the streets against "pleasurable sex" especially with them there "love generation men". Her motto is 'God is love, not sex' something she hopes to prove by luring randy men back to cheap hotel rooms then butchering them in the name of the Lord. Should we forget about Sara Jane's murderous tenancies there's also a folk song on the soundtrack to remind us that "Sara Jane, Sara Jane,Sister Sara, you're insane". Her opening pick-up/victim, a truck driver, rates as one of the vilest characters ever to appear in film and their 'moment' together is hardly the stuff of great romance. Spewing misogynistic dialogue he blows his top when Sara Jane starts singing hymns during sex, and bragging about bedding 4 or 5 women a week, having lots of illegitimate kids and not paying child support proves his final undoing. Sara Jane produces a knife from under the bed and offs the lowlife, Basic Instinct style.Arriving in LA, Sara Jane wastes no time in whipping her accordion out for a religious sing song, in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater no less. Her sole convert Penny runs an apartment block in which Sara Jane soon sets about forming "the secret order of the sisters of subjugation" (total members:2). Penny's family actually pays for her to keep away from them because of her sexual orientation, which doesn't exactly go down well with Sara Jane either. "I am a lesbian" admits Penny "but I'll stop it". With that sorted the deadly duo go about luring male swingers back to her flat, with Penny seducing the men (suffering the horrors of heterosexuality in turn) and Sara Jane hacking them to death. Not that much appears to be known about director/actor Walt Davis outside of the films. He directed his first feature Substitution-a soft core sexploiter-in 1969 and worked regularly as a writer and director in the sex industry till the mid-70s,mostly for producer Manuel Conde. The blueprint for Evil Come,Evil Go was clearly Davis' earlier hardcore film Widow Blue-now more commonly known as Sex Psycho-which far from being your average early porno added in a cocktail of violent mayhem and a scene of gay sex (with Davis as one of the participants) and subsequently was deemed unreleasable only belatedly turning up on video in 1995 (its now been withdrawn). Davis retains a handful of ideas from the earlier film (chiefly a couples attempt to dispose of a corpse being thwarted by the arrival of a nosey third party) but keeps the sex scenes a shade away from hardcore this time. Still its all highly sleazy stuff and even the most casual viewing will tip you off it came from a pornographic collective making a stab at straightforward exploitation film-making. The film was in fact produced by Bob Chinn who had initiated John Holmes' 'Johnny Wadd' series,Holmes even has a cameo in Evil Come,Evil Go and the majority of the male actors are moonlighting porn stars like bodybuilder Rick Cassidy and Gerard Broulard who had been in Sacrilege and here turns up for the film's curious -to say the least- non-ending. On the basis of the gruesome twosome that is Sex Psycho and Evil Come,Evil Go it seems fair to say Walt Davis liked sex, blood flying in all directions and perverse black comedy. Its a little too early (made 1972) to have been influenced by John Waters but with its rough home movie look and semi-improvised feel to the dialogue comparisons are there. The two leads would certainly be at home in a Waters movie, particularly Cleo O'Hara with her Warhol Superstar like stage name. You're never quite sure if you're watching acting or slightly disturbed people given a film to run riot in. Some of Evil Come,Evil Go is actually very, very funny, especially when Sara Jane and Penny discover to their horror a couple having sex in their backyard and attempt to cool the ardour by circling the couple whilst playing the tambourine "how dare you beget in front of me" and then there's Sara Jane's occasional unchristian 'lapses'- when her attempts to blag a free hotdog from a fast food joint goes sour she mouths behind the manager's back…well something that can't be repeated here. Yet tongue in cheek as the film is, and exaggerated as the acting gets, at the same time there is something frighteningly believable about the dumb well-moneyed Penny who is so easily lead that her lesbian girlfriend addresses her in the manner you would a dim child who goes off with strangers at the mall, and Sara Jane with her impromptu accordion playing, Baby Jane get-up and ambition to have her own TV show could be a guest on Jerry Springer. Targeted towards the H.G. Lewis drive-in crowd and pushing down on all the sex and horror buttons to endear itself to that audience, Evil Come,Evil Go is certainly a film you won't forget in a hurry and just to make sure of it there are no shortage of baffling moments to ponder over after the credits roll. Such as who let a pet cat wander into two crucial scenes, why one character played by Davis himself is listed in said credits as an 'Arizona Pig Farmer' an unusual occupation not even referenced in the film itself, and should we read any deeper significance into the presence of a long haired, vaguely messianic character who discreetly follows Sara Jane around strumming his guitar and singing that song to remind us that Sara Jane is indeed insane. I dare say only Walt himself could tell us what it all means.

This film, a weird cross-breed of horror and soft-core porn, is one of the more original low budget flicks from the 70s. Apparently intended for the grindhouse crowd(and coming near the end of that era), this movie mixes sex with religious fanaticism and gore. Sister Sarah Jane drifts cross-country, preaching against the evils of pleasurable sex and men. And how does this fine lady do the Lord's work? By hooking up with men, having sex with them, then stabbing them to death! Sister Sarah takes her message to the streets of downtown Hollywood, where she finds a disciple in naive Penny, a wealthy lesbian who swears to renounce her tendencies and follow Sarah. Together, they conspire to enact Sarah's master plan: Penny lures the men to her house and has sex with them and Sarah kills them. As sick as it sounds, it works. Actress Cleo O'Hara handles her role as Sarah Jane skillfully, going from bible-thumping harpie to slutty pyscho believably. If you're looking for a sick time, check this one out.