An uber-rarity that for years has been near the top of the want lists of quite a few film collectors (this one included), HEAVEN CAN HELP was made by the late LA based, Iranian born trash movie auteur Tony Zarindast (1934-2016). One of three films Zarindast made in 1989 (the others being HARDCASE AND SMITH and A HOLLYWOOD STORY), it was screened at the ‘89 Cannes Film Festival only to promptly vanish from circulation (until 2019, when it unexpectedly turned up on Amazon and YouTube); so scarce is the film that it doesn’t even have an imdb listing. The probable reason for its scarceness is evident in the quality of the picture, which tries (and fails!) to mix theological speculation and B-movie thrills.
In Beverly Hills, CA the teenaged Matthew has his father Valentino worried: the kid spends too much time on his computer, through which he’s apparently gotten in touch with an extraterrestrial intelligence. He’s actually communicating with the Heaven-based Crystal, a young woman angel who favors mini-dresses and high heels. Valentino, meanwhile, spends his days engaged in sinful pursuits at trendy dance clubs.
Cut to Heaven, where God, in the form of a nice old guy playing cards in a smoky (I mean that literally; the place looks to be on fire) mansion, divvies out Earthly assignments to his angels. The latest such assignment involves a “family in trouble”—the very one we’ve been watching—to whom Crystal’s boyfriend William, a himbo angel looking to regain his lost wings, is assigned.
Cut to Hell, which is likewise situated in a spacious mansion. There the devil, a suit wearing slime ball with long-assed fingernails, is after the soul of Matthew. He dispatches his witch underling Vira to the mortal plain, where she takes the form of a sexy rock star. As such Vira catches the attention of Valentino, and the two arrange for a tryst while his wife Maria is visiting relatives.
Vira turns up at Valentino’s house and seduces Matthew, which inspires a rare Earthly visit by Crystal. She informs Matthew of the situation in which he’s become ensnared and, to prove her angelic nature, takes him on a flight through the skies over LA (a sequence that’s not exactly SUPERMAN, although it tries to be). The devil, for his part, grows mighty pissed that Vira disobeyed her directive to seduce Valentino.
The following day Matthew is kidnapped by Vira. She’s determined to kill him and bequeath his blood to the devil, who’s strengthened by the blood of innocents. It seems all is lost but, as the title proclaims, heaven can help!
I’m not sure this film, despite its Biblical underpinnings, can truly be called an evangelical production (as Zarindast was most likely exploiting the Satanic Panic of the late eighties). Still, HEAVEN CAN HELP has much in common with the late Twentieth Century Holy Indies, notably the student film worthy production values and amateurish mise-en-scene (which belies the fact that Zarindast was a thirty year filmmaking veteran), all in service of a resolutely earnest and reverential presentation of theological sap.
That’s in addition to the ever-present eighties-centric synthesizer score that’s constantly telegraphing the tone (be it the forced whimsy of the early scenes or the portentous intensity of the later ones) and also, as in so many bad movies then and now, the gratuitous padding. This is to say that the narrative is constantly being broken up by copious footage of the principal actors wandering through various LA landmarks (Century City, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Hollywood Boulevard), meaning the film has some worth as a late eighties So Cal travelogue.
Another element HEAVEN CAN HELP has in its favor is a misguided audacity of a type only a true crap movie auteur can provide. Zarindast freely utilizes a plethora of ambitious elements—varying levels of reality, levitation, melting faces—that were far beyond the scope of his budget and skill level, but he never lets that slow him down. And the final, cosmically wrongheaded freeze frame is a guaranteed jaw-dropper.
Vital Statistics
HEAVEN CAN HELP
United Entertainment, Inc.
Director/Producer/Screenwriter: Tony Zarindast
Cinematography: Robert Hayes
Editing: Ronald Goldstein
Cast: Tony Bova, Joe Balogh, Ted Prior, Diane Copeland, Jinx Dawson, Myron Natwick, Diane Heyden, Collett Rounsavall, Kimberly Dawn, George Klein, Lenny Rose, George W. Scott, Byron Clark