Director/Producer – Grant Austin Waldman, Screenplay – Brinke Stevens, Story – Fred Olen Ray, Photography – William H. Molina, Music – Chuck Cirino, Visual Effects – Bret Mixon, Makeup Effects – Joey Castro. Production Company – Austin Enterprises Wald-Way Films.
Cast
Brinke Stevens (Dianna), Jay Richardson (Mike), Eddie Deezen (Eddie), Elena Sahagun (Sally), Tom Shell (Jeff), Robert Quarry (Father McFarren), Michael Berryman (Herman), Oliver Darrow (Demon), Hoke Howell (Baron DeSade), Kathryn Kates (Maid)
Plot
Dianna, a Los Angeles university student, finds a house going at a very cheap rental rate and moves in. She soon begins to experience strange phenomena. Her sister Sally and Sally’s boyfriend Mike come to investigate and find the sweetly innocent Dianna is now possessed. They, Dianna’s would-be boyfriend Jeff, the priest Father McFarren and pizza delivery boy Eddie end up fighting against the demonic forces and zombies that have been released from the cellar.
Brinke Stevens was one of the top actresses among the 1980s/90s Scream Queen fad. Stevens was more mundanely born as Charlene Elizabeth Brinkman – she took the name Stevens from her short-lived marriage to comic-book artist Dave Stevens, best known as the creator of The Rocketeer. Stevens made her first film appearance in Necromancy (1972) in her teens and went on to appear in over 200 films and is still going strong today into her sixties. In Teenage Exorcist, Brinke Stevens not only takes the lead but also writes the screenplay. Elsewhere, Stevens has also written Wild Spirit (2003) and Dr Horror’s Erotic House of Idiots (2004). Stevens also took the director’s chair on Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama 2 (2022) and one of the segments of the anthology Terror Toons 2 (2022).
Teenage Exorcist also ends up being a Fred Olen Ray film in all but name. Olen Ray is one of the most prolific directors of all time in multiple exploitation genres, including titles such as Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988). Scream Queen Hot Tub (1991) and Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds (1995), among others. Olen Ray gave Brinke Stevens many of her breakout roles in films like Warlords (1988), Bad Girls from Mars (1990), Haunting Fear (1990), Mob Boss (1990) and Spirits (1990) and was one of the leading proponents of the whole Scream Queen fad – the two have made eighteen films together.
Olen Ray is present here providing the story, while Olen Ray regulars such as Jay Richardson and Robert Quarry turn up in the cast. The actual director’s reins have been handed over to Grant Austin Waldman, a former assistant director to Olen Ray who stepped up to direct with four films, The Channeler (1991), Gator King (1997) and Victoria’s Shadow (2001). Teenage Exorcist reads as fairly much as cleaned-up Olen Ray – there is not his usual gratuitous T&A content, for example.
A possessed Brinke Stevens
Teenage Exorcist is not a particularly great film, although is not without occasional amusements. It is a fairly broad comedy but there is the odd moment such as when would-be boyfriend Tom Shell turns up and takes Jay Richardson and Elena Sahagun as swingers engaged in kink, compounded when he walks in on Brinke Stevens tied up to the bed. Later scenes throw humour in the direction of The Exorcist (1973) and the whole Possession and Exorcism genre. In one witty scene, priest Robert Quarry calls his superiors for help but misdials a gets a pizza parlour that misinterprets everything he says in terms of an order. Or some of the moments with Robert Quarry performing card tricks for the zombies. On the other hand, the comedy elements are broad and the script not well focused on developing the essential joke out.
One of the amusements is Brinke Stevens playing a teenager at the age of 37, no less! She gets to make an entertaining swing between Girl Next Door guilelessness – “the most evil thing she has done is double-park in front of the library” it is said of her – to seductive strumpet and later even turning up as a whip-wielding dominatrix in fetish gear.
