Maren Jensen and a Bruce Campbell-esque Douglas Barr star as a happily married (and newly pregnant) couple who live and work on an idyllic farm right next door to an Amish-like community of technology shunning Hittites. Barr has been excommunicated from the group for marrying Jensen and tensions run between neighbors run high.
Ernest Borgnine is the patriarch of the group which includes Craven regular Michael Berryman from THE HILLS HAVE EYES. With Berryman lurking around and trespassing on the happy couple's farm, it's no wonder Jensen becomes suspicious when her husband turns up dead.
Borgnine declares there's a succubus in their midst, and heavily implies the succubus is the new widow herself. It isn't long before Berryman also disappears and allegations of a revenge killing are bandied about. Amidst all this, Jensen's friends from LA show up (Susan Buckner and Sharon Stone) to keep her company, and one of them catches the eye of a young, reluctantly engaged Hittite (Jeff "Superman" East again).
That's a lot of plot, huh? Sorry. The point is, Sharon Stone has scary dreams (foreshadowing Craven's most famous flick!), the Hittites lurk around, some other neighbors are weird too and there may or may not be a succubus in the mix. The movie comes to two not entirely satisfying twist endings, the first of which needlessly relies on "othering" one of the characters to scare the viewer and the second of which is awesome but totally arbitrary.
So, it's not perfect, but the acting is all good, it's the first Craven movie with beautiful cinematography (courtesy Robert Jessup), the suspense works throughout, there's a great James Horner score and there are a few legit scares (including a snake in the bathtub!).
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