A beautiful couple meet people who seem to be distant college friends and are invited to their country mansion. Once there, the couple slowly find out their hosts are Satanists.
Now, I'm not going to lie to you. This is a eurotrash sexploitation flick. In fact, it was one of the first films to pick up Spain's "S" (Sex) label that was instituted after Franco's death. What makes the movie above the rest is the constant atmosphere of something that isn't right. And while this was considered a hard core horror movie, the slim budget used to make the picture gave them no room for very little gore. This gave them more interest and time to concentrate on disturbing imagery.
That being said, there are some weaknesses to the movie. Mainly it didn't know what version of "Satanism" it wanted to be. One minute it's cribbing LeVey, another minute Alistair Crowley, then it goes Dennis Wheatley, then it's Montague Summers, Catholic texts and rhetoric, Mad Magazine. By the end of the movie, it's so all over the place, you need to take an aspirin just to recover from it.
This leads us to another weakness. I don't think the director, Carlos Puerto, knew what the hell he was doing. I think he wrote out my first paragraph of this review and just went with it. "Mariana! We need you to look more terrifying! Stoop over that bowl and pretend to eat like a dog! WAIT! Someone get some blood goop on her lip. Yeeessss. Very nice. Ok. Ready! Camera! ACTION!!" I mean it's almost ridiculous. He trys to get too much in so little time. It just bunches up and falls over itself.
All in all, it's a nice film to own. Something to watch on Sundays or days that seem to drag on. Not a classic by any means, but fun none the less. Plus you can wank to it.
Two and a half stars.
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