SATAN'S CHILDREN [1975]

 "YOU JUST DON'T FEEL GOOD.  YOUR ASS IS SORE."

 

Start liking boys right now!!!

So says Simon, leader of the 'Satanic Cult' to nebbish perpetual loser Bobby who's recently had terrible things done to his butt by a gang of ruffians.  And this is only one part of the kinda day Bobby's having.  This Tampa, Florida opus was seemingly shot with no second takes and no script to speak of.  Actors stand a seemingly interminable amount of time before mumbling their lines (or possibly making them up on the spot) with all the acting talent of this Dixie Cup sitting here by my keyboard.  I don't really see what the late 80's-early 90's Satanic Panic in America was all about because this is the movie that proves that Satanic Cults were all about bureaucracy and tedious lectures.  Oh, and don't forget Satan ain't fond of them there queers either!  That's right, a female Satanic cult member is strung up because she prefers girls.  And ole Bobby himself is teased by those ole Satanists for being gay even though he was forcibly raped and beaten and left for dead on the side of a park/playground where the cult was playing a ballgame.  Yeah, that's what Satanists do in their spare time when they're not condemning dem queers!  There really is a startlingly pronounced homophobia rattling around in this movie!  But we're getting ahead of ourselves here.

NOT a young Gary Oldman

So a young Gary Oldman plays Bobby: a perpetual loser whose stepfather bullies him and whose stepsister sexually taunts him.  OK, it's not REALLY a young Gary Oldman but the guy IS a dead ringer for the Oscar-winning actor and what he must've looked like around the age of 20.  Some I'm running with it. And I'm not really going to list the actor's names in this movie since I'm trying to protect the guilty!  So Bobby storms out of the house when he's had enough of his stepsister playing footsie in his crotch under the dinner table and narcing his pot stash to dear old Step Dad.  Entering a bar (which looks more like a diner), Bobby is accosted by an older man who is patently putting the make on Bobby.  A big tough guy in a motorcycle helmet chases the older man away calling him a 'damn queer' and promises Bobby a place to crash for the night.  Of course, Johnny Beefcake takes all his clothes off, puts on a robe and sticks a knife under Bobby's chin telling him "he just has to stay still". 

Fade to a naked Bobby trussed up on the bed and Beefcake Boy is calling some friends to have a 'party'.  Said party is about 4 guys violating the trussed up Bobby in their car. 

Yikes!!!

As stated, Bobby is dumped unconscious and a group of Satanists playing ball in the park see him.  Sherry, acting leader of the cult while boss Simon is 'away' somewhere, falls in love with Bobby and boinks him.  Cult member Joshua complains about letting this loser into the cult.  Simon wouldn't like it and besides, he's obviously a queer since he had that butt stuff done to him.  He was OBVIOUSLY asking for it!  A pissed off Sherry hangs Joshua from a rope in a tree.  Unfortunately for her, before his death Joshua 'prayed' Simon back to the cult.  And Joshua was right. 

Simon: the most bored cult leader ever!

Simon isn't pleased with Sherry and has her buried up to her neck in the sand, covered in syrup and scattered with ants.  Simon confronts the still bedridden Bobby about being a queer and a loser victim and Satan doesn't want the souls of loser/victims!  Bobby breaks out of the compound in nothing but his tighty-whiteys in which he runs around for most of the final third of the film.  For a movie that's so down on 'queers', there's a whole lot of homoerotic stuff going on including the aforesaid Bobby running around in his underwear.  I swear, I've seen more shots of Bobby's undercarriage than I could wish for in SEVERAL lifetimes.  So Bobby in his underwear is chased all over by the most incompetent cultists I've ever seen and things and junk and stuff happen and that's the movie basically.  Oh wait, there's also quicksand at one point because . . . well, of course there is!  And by the end of the movie, things get even MORE bonkers when the 'worm turns', as it were.  I'm telling you, what happens in the final reel is NOT what I was expecting from the rest of the film I'd watched so far.  I mean, there's moiduh and Satanic stuff going on -- all set to the sound of a romantic early-70's love song.  This movie just went off into full demented territory!    

The Brady Bunch was never like this!

All of this might lead you to believe that I hate the film but, on the contrary, it's so incompetent, goofy and misguided that I was never bored!  Probably the most monumentally goofy thing about SATAN'S CHILDREN is the fact that it apparently was 'blamed' for inspiring a couple of real-life Satanists murdering Kenneth Robert Houston in Tampa on March 6, 1975 (!).  An 18 year old 'witch' and her 19 year old 'cult wizard' boyfriend were charged with the murder and supposedly 'inspired' by seeing SATAN'S CHILDREN.  Of course, this is all total bullshit (unless they BORED the poor man to death) and was surely a publicity gimmick by the filmmakers.  The 'news article' is reproduced on the back of the AGFA/Something Weird slipcover.  Is this a recommendation?  Hell no!  Is this going to be something I rewatch ever again in my lifetime.  Oh, HELL yeah!