THE BELIEVERS (1987)
Starring Martin Sheen and Helen Shaver
Pretty eerie occult thriller with dynamite actors (Sheen, Robert Loggia, among others) tapped into the paranoia Americans had in the late 1980s about ritual abuse. Sheen plays a father who witnesses the gruesome freak-accident-by-coffee death of his wife.
As he struggles to get over the loss, and begins to get used to living alone with his young son, psychologist Sheen becomes involved with the investigation of a series of grisly child murders. All of them look like voodoo sacrifices. As Sheen digs deeper and deeper into the causes of the killings, he realizes that something even more sinister is going on than an ordinary voodoo cult.
With a big budget and even some halfway decent make-up effects, "The Believers" is a solid horror offerings, although fans of teen terror won't find much to celebrate. This is adult horror fare in the "Exorcist" or "Rosemary's Baby" vein. If "Believers" is guilty of anything it's of taking itself too seriously. At the same time, the story toward the end just isn't all that believable. But ultimately, the shock ending should leave you feeling pretty chilled.