A Day of Judgment is a 1981 American religious propaganda film turned Slasher Movie. It concerns the Angel of Death coming to clean up a town after it becomes so sinful its preacher abandons it.
This film contains examples of:
- Artistic License – History: Charlie calls Sid "Caprain of the Nazis." The film is set sometime in the 1920s. Hitler didn't become Chancellor of Germany until 1933, and WWII didn't start until 1939. It was long before Nazis became a Villain by Default.
- Asshole Victim: The entire victim pool is sinners the Angel was sent to cleanse the Earth of.
- Cruella to Animals: Finch poisons some kids' goat because she thinks they're conspiring against her.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The Angel of Death may be an imposing, skeletal figure in all black, but he's merciful enough to rewind time so his victims can repent.
- Dragged Off to Hell: After the Angel kills Finch, she's dragged into the ground by a bunch of hands and consumed in flame.
- Driven to Suicide: A farmer is driven to shoot himself by the foreclosure of his home by the local Morally Bankrupt Banker.
- Ensemble Cast: Different segments of the film follow different sinners in the town before the Angel kills them.
- Even Evil Has Standards: George's Amoral Attorney is perfectly okay with his client tricking his parents into giving him power of attorney and sending them to the county poorhouse, but he draws the line at sending them to the local insane asylum.
- Everybody Lives: The Angel rewinds time to before any of the deaths happen.
- Evil-Detecting Animal: Cage's horse freaks out when it notices the Angel of Death.
- Heel–Face Turn: The Angel of Death lets its victims awaken on the day before their sins, and they all repent due to visions of Hell.
- It's All My Fault: Reverend Cage blames himself for how sinful the town has become.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The Angel's punishments are based on the crimes his victims committed. For example, he has a woman who poisoned a child's pet in her paranoia about her gardens Dragged Off to Hell via her plants.
- Never My Fault: Charlie blames literally everybody he knows for his own drunken and abusive tendencies ruining his marriage and life.
- The Paranoiac: Mrs. Finch believes that anybody who walks past her property is planning something, imagines peeping toms that aren't there and assumes hired help is stealing her brandy.
- Prophetic Dream: God sends the town preacher a dream about his wrath coming upon the town as a warning for him to leave.
- The Scourge of God: Literally, the slasher here is an actual agent of the Almighty.
- Villain Protagonist: The Ensemble Cast of the film is full of sinners who commit various heinous acts before the Angel of Death comes after them.
