"I REALIZED TOO LATE THAT MARY AND I WERE DESTINED TO BE MORE THAN SPECTATORS AT THIS BIZARRE CEREMONY; OUR ARRIVAL HAD COMPLETED THE UNHOLY NUMBER OF THIRTEEN!"
This year's Countdown to Halloween has featured more than it's fair share of clunkers, it seems, and "THE SATANIST" is perhaps the biggest clunk of all. A cross between a nudie cutie, MANOS, HAND OF FATE and the semi (pun intended)-Ed Wood film ORGY OF THE DEAD, THE SATANIST is 64 minutes long and features approximately 4 minutes of actual content. The almost non-existent plot centers around a writer who has had a nervous breakdown. On doctor's orders, he and his wife move to a house in the country where the writer can recover with absolute rest.
No sooner does the couple enter the house, than the wife strips down to her undies and drags her husband to bed. The husband/author is played by Pat Barrington and no, he's not wearing an angora sweater to bed -- it's just his massively furry arms and shoulders. Thus commences about 5 minutes of the wife (topless but with panties securely in place) and husband (down to his 'baggy' whities) rolling back and forth on the bed. Get used to this -- it will happen about every 5 minutes in the film. Next day the couple go out for a drive and immediately run down a woman named Shondra riding her bike. Shondra's just fine, however, and invites the couple to her house for cocktails (or what looks like to Coke's in a tumbler). Shondra somehow knows the man is a writer and lends him a book on occultism which he is quickly mesmerized by. He sees a big-titted hoyden in the mirror who then disappears. The couple goes home.
But not before being invited back 'round Shondra's place on the 'sabbath' for a party she's giving. In their honour. Shondra, who is actually a witch (didn't see THAT coming, didja?!?) sends a succubus over to the husband for another 5 minutes of topless bed-rolling. The succubus, of course, is known for draining a man's 'energy' (which is actually nicely (and hilariously) alluded to by cutting from the husband post-big-O to a tea kettle spouting white steam! Husband is exhausted so wifey takes the occult book back to Shondra's place and sees Shondra . . . . or is it the succubus . . . it's hard to keep these things straight since about this time I lost the ability to focus . . . performing a magic circle ritual while skyclad. I think there might've been several more 5 minute bed-rollling but again I was almost comatose by then. Skip to the appointed party in which the entire coven comes over to Shondra's place, the writer/husband is chained up and made to watch the most boring orgy ever held as well as the repeated violation of his willing/mesmerized wife by everyone at the party including Satan himself. Here's Old Nick now:
Um . . . after all this, the husband speaks to camera (one of only TWO times in the entire film there is live audio -- the rest is overdubbed narration. Through THE ENTIRE MOVIE!!! Think THE CREEPING TERROR. Yeah. Anyway, here's the big spoiler you were breathless to learn: it was all a dream and the camera pulls back to see the writer sitting in a wheelchair on the lunatic asylum lawn while the witch and the succubus (who are his nurses) wheel him toward the camera. So yes, the film is from 1968 and is the softest of softcore coming out before anything more explicit would be allowed on screen. But unfortunately, it takes itself completely seriously and is not a silly lark like such earlier nudie cuties as KISS ME QUICK or HOUSE ON BARE MOUNTAIN etc. This is the kind of film that the raincoat brigade would've seen in a grindhouse with a name like 'The Pussycat Theater' or something. In fact, they actually DID! Here's a newspaper ad for the film appearing in . . . yep . . . THE PUSSYCAT THEATER!!!!
It's actually really a shame that the filmmakers didn't have a little more ambition because the film actually has a good look and the one ritual scene involving the conjuring of the magic circle actually looks nice. But there's sadly not enough here to keep anyone entertained. Thank God for the fast forward button! And yeah - - - it should be obvious that anyone looking for this to be a filmic adaptation of Dennis Wheatley's "THE SATANIST" is barking up the wrong hanging tree.
"The last I remember was the mocking laughter. Perhaps . . . . it was my own."
No comments:
Post a Comment