The Divine Enforcer – review

Director: Robert Rundle

Release date: 1992

Contains spoilers

On the surface this should be a cult classic but somehow just isn’t, it sits in a place where it should be so bad it was good, but was just bad, and all that is a crying shame. Note that whilst there is something supernatural (or psychic, at least) going on, the vampire in this is a serial killer rather than undead.

It starts with a car and a couple, the woman unnamed and the man named Otis (Don Stroud). He pulls up and it wasn’t overly clear whether he picked her up or she was a prostitute but she certainly gets spooked when he pulls a needle, injects her and then starts suckling at the hole. She gets out of the car and legs it. She comes across a drunk derelict who turns out to be a bit rapey. Otis injects him (he collapses) and she falls into his arm.

Erik Estrada as the Monsignor

Talking of rapey, three guys are assaulting a woman when a man (Michael M. Foley) intervenes and beats them with his martial arts prowess (nastily breaking one’s arm in the process), he rescues the woman. Elsewhere, Otis has the woman he's kidnapped tied up. He pricks her with a syringe and starts to drink her blood. Another cut and we are with Monsignor (Erik Estrada, Chupacabra Vs the Alamo) who is having breakfast. His housekeeper, Merna (Judy Landers), has a newspaper and mentions the serial killer the press is calling the Vampire, who kills women and drains them of their blood. They are expecting new priest Father Daniel, there is a knock at the door and he has arrived early – it is the kung fu man.

Don Stroud as Otis

So, Daniel is a bit of a vigilante and has a gun with a cross on the handle, a crucifix dagger and crucifix shuriken. He starts getting names and details from confessions and goes taking out the bad guys. However, we also discover that he has second sight that he also uses in order to be God’s vengeance. The film veers all over the place, from Otis and Stroud’s wonderfully deranged performance, as he kidnaps women, drains their blood to make smoothies and also takes their skulls, to Daniel kicking ass in the parish’s seedy underbelly.

Merna and Father Daniel

Otis starts going to confession – which Daniel must respect the sanctity of (despite using them as focal points for his retribution) – and this sets them up as enemies. Daniel also meets Kim (Carrie Chambers) a young woman with the second sight, which has latched on to Otis, and he promises to help her. In the meantime, the other priest in the house turns out to be Father Thomas, a grouch who does little more than read about the vigilante and the vampire in the papers and who is played by a woefully underused Jan-Michael Vincent, who was phoning the performance in. I mean, Erik Estrada was underused but nothing on how wasted JMV was. It is possible that Otis also has psychic powers, or he is just batshit delusional – he gets a visitation from victims at one point and a skull talks to him.

This should be a recipe for cult status. It really should. On that score it fails and the whole thing is a slog. 2.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.