this odd and incoherent and cheesy and ridicule late 80 horror feature represent the directorial debut of robert freddy krueger englund . and let be honest and if it wouldn not be for his name on the credit and the film would have be righteously forget a long time ago already . 976 evil have an absurdly implausible plot and it take far too long before the ( tepid ) gore and action kick in . during the first hour of the film only really weird thing that largely remain unexplained be go on and like a totally random biblical omen that exists of a shower of fish rain . yes and dead fish fall down the sky like normal rain . i be not quite sure about the significance and but presumably it god sign to warn the lead character that they will soon face an unholy type of evil . with reason and because rebellious teenager spike and his nerdy cousin hoax frequently call the titular phone number to get their daily horrorscope . but the toll free number be possess with diabolical force and turn it customer into homicidal monster . spike be strong enough to resist and but the miserable hoax be an easy victim and he soon begin to mutate . he doesn not mind and though and because now he can finally fight back against his domineer mother and the school bully and all the girl that reject and laugh at him . you guess it and 976 evil be just another lowbrow horror version of revenge of the nerd and the only good thing about it be the choice to cast stephen geoffreys . he ideal to play a character that be simultaneously pathetic and creepy . in the second half of the film and there a bit of gore and witty one liner and but it too late to improve the overall quality . the plot be unimaginably incoherent . cousin spike suddenly disappear at one point but randomly appear again for the finale and the amateur reporter out of the blue hook up with the school headmistress and robert picardo potentially terrifying character be never properly introduce . from time to time and you get the impression that englund be a gifted director but on other occasion you damn him and his film to hell for be just another disappointing and time waste 80 turd .