I distinctly remember the advertising campaign that accompanied the release of 1982's Superstition, although I was way too young to appreciate (or gain admission to) this sort of horror tale. The commercials and the posters showed off a spooky hooded figure, and I believe the flick must have gone out unrated, because the marketing push was focused on the "extreme" nature of the horror violence.

So here we are a bunch of years later, and having just suffered through James Roberson's Superstition I can offer the following observation: Marketing movies might just be harder than making them. I sure as hell remember this movie's advertisements, but I can guarantee you the film itself will be gone from my memory banks by this time next week.

A painfully familiar haunted house tale, only one with a few gristly gore-splatters in Act III, Superstition is about a family that moves into a nefarious domicile. Suffice to say we get a generous parcel of: mysterious kids who shouldn't be there, withered old crones who live down the lane, ineffectual police detectives who exist only to dole out huge, dreary blocks of exposition, time-padding dream sequences, and two or three Renaissance Faire flashbacks that attempt to explain why the house is haunted by an evil witch who (thunk!) zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

It's all very rote, redundant and ridiculously dry. The Canadian production boasts roundabout plot machinations, stodgy acting performances, and very little in way of mood, pacing or style. The small handful of random deaths which occur in the flick's first hour are not nearly tantalizing enough to keep the yawns at bay -- and by the time the movie wheezes to its body-count finale, you'll be way too sleepy to even care who survives. Or what's doing the killing in the first place.

The DVD

Video: The anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) transfer is surprisingly strong, although it's tinged with a good dosage of '80s-style grain.

Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 no frills. A little tinny, but good enough for the movie at hand.

Extras:

Just a handful of trailers: Superstition, The Evil Dead, Cemetery Man, Warning Sign, and Baby Blood. Ew.

Final Thoughts

Dry, dreary and too long even at 80 minutes, Superstition is 45 seconds of half-decent gore mired in a movie so lifeless it's almost scary. Almost.