Summaries

Synopsis

In the 16th century, Spanish Satanic leader Father Lorenzo Esteban (Richard Moll) and his followers are approached by a church official on the shore of Spain, telling them that they are banished from Spain to the New World and denied God's grace unless they renounce Satan and their evil ways.

In the present, Stanley Coopersmith (Clint Howard) is young cadet at West Andover military academy. He is a social outcast and a player on the academy soccer team who is bullied by his classmates on account of him being an orphan, and treated unfairly by his coach and instructors who believe him to be unintelligent at everything. Coopersmith's only friend at the academy is Kowalski (Haywood Nelson), the sole African American student... and who also happens to be gay. (Note: through the film, Kowalski makes subtle passes at Coopersmith... who gently turns down Kowalski each time).

When Coopersmith is punished for no clear reason by forcing to clean the church cellar, he finds a room belonging to Father Esteban which contains books of black magic along with Father Esteban's diary. He then uses his computer skills to translate the book from Latin into English, in which the translation describes Esteban as a Satanist and the book contains rituals for performing the Black Mass along with a promise by Esteban citing "I Will Return".

Waking up the late the next morning, Coopersmith finds his alarm clock unplugged and his clothing tied in knots courtesy of his belligerent classmates. This causes him to be tardy for morning classes, and his mean Latin teacher writes him a punishment note to be taken to the school's headmaster, Colonel Kincaid (Charles Tyner) in his office. When he's sent to the office, Coopersmith accidentally leaves the diary on the desk of the school secretary Miss Friedemeyer (Lynn Hancock) who hides it.

While Coopersmith is being made to clean the stables as punishment for no reason, the slut-bag Miss Friedemeyer begins to finger the jewels on the front of the diary. Attempting to look into the jewels thoroughly out of their settings causes the pigs in the stable to attack Coopersmith.

Coopersmith returns to his dormitory room that evening to find his belongings scattered by his classmates again, and cannot find his book of black magic, assuming that his classmates stole it. He confronts them about the supposed theft at a local roller rink, but they deny knowledge of the book and he leaves. Coopersmith goes back to the office and asks Miss Friedemeyer about his missing book with the jewels on the front cover, but she outright lies by saying that he did not leave any book behind at the office on the previous day. Coopersmith then goes to the school's computer lab in the library to perform more general research on Satanism even though his book is still missing. His allotted time in the lab runs out, and he is forced to leave with his research incomplete.

Next Coopersmith appears in the church cellar with computer equipment which is assumed to be stolen from the school's computer lab (as the act itself is never shown on-camera). He sets up the desktop computer and runs some inquiries into the requirements for a black mass. Searching through various bottles in the cellar left by Father Esteban, he attempts to initiate a mass but the computer informs him that he is still missing crucial ingredients, namely blood and a consecrated host. At this point, he is nearly discovered by Reverend Jameson (Joseph Cortese), the church's current pastor, who sends him off to the mess hall to eat dinner. After arriving at the mess hall too late for lunch, he befriends the school's sloppy, but good-natured cook, Jo Jo, who makes a meal for him and shows him a litter of puppies that his dog just had. Coopersmith takes the smallest pup for himself, names him Fred and hides him in the church cellar.

Coopersmith steals the host from the church, and then notices Esteban's portrait on the wall. Using the translation, he attempts the ritual and is suddenly attacked by his four classmates wearing masks and robes. After knocking him unconscious, they leave. Thinking he has successfully performed the ritual, Coopersmith is informed by his computer that the ritual was incomplete and a pentagram appears on the computer screen. Coopersmith accidentally wakes the drunken caretaker Sarge (R.G. Armstrong), who accuses him of being a thief for stealing a crowbar. Sarge attacks Coopersmith, who screams for help, and the computer flares to life with a red pentagram on it. An unseen force then takes the caretaker's head and turns it completely around breaking his neck. Coopersmith then discovers a catacomb filled with decapitated skeletal remains and the crypt of Father Esteban. After hiding the caretaker's body, he leaves.

That evening, Miss Friedemeyer is at home where she attempts one last time to look into the pentagram from the black magic book she stole from Coopersmith. She fails, injuring her finger which bleeds. She undresses, begins to take a shower and is fatally attacked by demonically spawned boars.

After watching a beauty pageant at the school's pep rally, Coopersmith is attacked by his classmates under the bleachers who tell him that if tries to play in the big game tomorrow they will find and kill Fred. After witnessing his beating at the hands of his classmates, the hostile and unfriendly Colonel Kincaid approaches Coopersmith, laying bloodied on the ground, and officially kicks him off the soccer team.

After a night of drinking, Coopersmith's four classmates make their way into Esteban's hidden room and find Coopersmith's computer program. After killing Fred, the computer says that the blood used must be human blood. After finding Fred's mutilated body, Coopersmith becomes completely enraged. The diary then appears laying on Esteban's casket. When a teacher named Hauptman (Hamilton Camp) catches Coopersmith in the church stealing the host, he follows him to the catacombs where Coopersmith is translating the rest of the diary. Coopersmith pledges his life to Satan then kills his mean teacher on a spiked wheel and collects his blood.

Unaware of the ritual being performed below, Coopersmith's classmates, the soccer coach (Claude Earl Jones), principal, and minister are all in attendance at a service above. After successfully performing the ritual, Father Esteban's soul then possesses Coopersmith's body and takes up a sword.

Meanwhile, a nail from the large crucifix hanging over the church's altar is pried out by an unseen force and flies across the room and is driven into the minister's skull. Coopersmith then rises from the cellar below engulfed in flames and wielding a sword. A pack of large black boars pours out of the hole in the floor where Coopersmith now hovers above everyone else. He then decapitates his principal and his coach. His classmates try to flee from the church only to be devoured alive by the boars. In the catacombs, the lead bully Bubba (Don Stark) tries to escape only to have the caretaker Sarge come back to life and remove the boy's heart while it is still beating. The church burns to the ground.

The caption at the end says that Stanley Coopersmith survived the attack, but after witnessing the fiery death of his classmates, he went catatonic from shock and was sentenced to Sunnydale Asylum where he remains to this day. The end of the film shows Coopersmith's true fate as his face appears on the computer screen in the cellar with the words "I Will Return".