To be perfectly honest, this movie wasn't great, or even good. 976-EVIL is simply a campy, trashy horror movie. The plot isn't very strong, with the focus much more heavily on over-the-top and often ridiculous gore-- as one might expect from a film directed by Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund. The story follows "bad boy" Spike and his nerdy, introverted cousin, Hoax. They both find a card advertising the phone line 976-EVIL, with instructions to dial for your "horrorscope". Stephen Geoffreys' performance as Hoax is exactly what one might expect after his role in Fright Night-- he's intense, wild, and interesting-- but his co-star, Patrick O'Bryan, is far less notable as Spike. The film attempts to heavily lean on the cousin bond as a plot device, but the relationship isn't very well-developed, or very believable, which leaves much of the story transparent and wholly unsurprising.That being said, it's easy to enjoy if you don't expect it to be something more than a cheap teen horror movie from the 80s. If you're looking for camp, or a (possibly unintentionally) comedic horror, 976- EVIL is a great choice, and one that I sincerely enjoyed.

I was really looking forward to this one! I've been renting cheesy 80s movies on iTunes lately and thought, "Hey, why not try this one." Looked kinda cool, but it was really dumb. The idea is good, but the execution wasn't.So why does the Fright Night kid get turned into the monster? Why not the motorcycle guy? They both called the same number.I watched this movie less than a week ago but I can barely remember what I was going to write about it. There was too much build up and little delivery, that was one thing. I'm not sure if I can't stand the Fright Night kid or if I'm okay with him. He smiles in every scene, it's pretty annoying. Same thing in Fright Night too, just smilin' away, havin fun. He turns into a monster in Fright Night too, which I just now remembered.Anyway, bottom line - dumb movie, I would say only aficionados of 80s garbage would want to spend time on this one. I would NOT say it's so bad it's good, I would just say it's bad.Peace!

i remember when i was growing up and seeing all these 976 numbers showing up on the TV,, mainly they were those phone sex advertismens. i just thought that it was hilarious too see a title called 976-evil , i remember hearing a lot about this movie when it came out, so i thought that i would give it a try, i was impressed by it, the idea of evil coming in over the phone lines, a teenage boy loses a bet in a poker game and has to give up the pink slip to his 48 harley, so he finds this ad on paper with the phone number to call in,, it's like a horoscope , anyway the kid follows the advice given and wins back the money to get his pink slip back,, enter the cousin, a little nerdy kid who gets bullied at school constantly, he winds up with the phone number and calls in , and low and behold he follows the advice given as well, pretty soon he ends up being in control of his life,, no longer being bullied, especially by his ratically religious mother, this is a neat little film that i liked very much.

In "976-EVIL," Satan's on the line and if you value your soul, you better not pick up. Or so it goes in this lame-brained horror flick directed by Mr. Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, which includes a script written by Brian Helgeland and Rhet Topham. With Englund's first time behind the camera, you would expect something truly unique or at least something close to being even remotely frightening like "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984), but when things get interesting "976-EVIL" devolves into typical slasher/possession stuff and thus joins the ranks of so many other "B" horror movies from the 1980s.The movie at least has an inventive premise: dialing the title phone number puts you on a hot line with the Devil himself. A creepy voice (Englund) on the other end gives you some advice (your "horror-scope") and it pays off, but usually at a price: your soul.Teenage biker-punk Spike (Patrick O'Neal), an indebted gambler, is able to use the words of wisdom bestowed upon him and break free of his poker habit before the hot line's influence has a chance to truly take hold of him. His cousin, shy and repressed Hoax ("Evil Ed" Stephen Geoffreys), isn't so lucky. Bullied and unlucky with the ladies, he dials 976-EVIL and before you know it, the otherwise good boy with good morals goes from fundamentalist Christian to practicing Satanist in the time it takes for you to dial that evil number. Now a full-fledged psychopath possessed by the Devil, he soon starts growing jet-black fingernails and scales and speaking in an ever-creepy Satanic voice who has a tendency of dropping painfully unfunny one-liners that mostly fall flat on their face.Of course with a title like "976-EVIL," you could only expect the worst from this horror movie. The film starts off good, with one unlucky caller meeting their demise, and then the main characters are introduced but once the scares start coming, it all falls apart. But even then, it takes almost forever for that to even start.Geoffreys, a regular in '80s horror movies like 1985's "Fright Night," seems almost pitch-perfect as the shy kid who stood to gain some confidence with Satanic powers, but comes off instead as another rejected nerd-turned-braindead screen slasher who goes on a murderous rampage against his tormentors. There is one particularly creepy sequence where he's able to manifest a spider TV dinner upon one unfortunate victim. We should have expected better from Mr. Englund and as expected, we got less. And Joe Dante regular Robert Picardo also appears as Mark Dark, the manager of a sleazy phone-sex operation."976-EVIL" - Hang up, fast!3/10