Norman J. Warren is known for being the first, along with Pete Walker, to bring gore and copious nudity into British horror films, and he doesn't disappoint on that front with Satan's Slave.
A young woman with vague psychic powers is going with her mother and father to visit her uncle, whom her father has never seen since they were children. On the way there, a car crash and inexplicable explosion leaves her suddenly orphaned and in the care of her uncle (Michael Gough, excellently creepy as always), along with his murderous son and secretary, in a mansion with a private graveyard where witchburnings were once conducted. As she recovers and grieves, she falls in love with her cousin and is gradually tipped off that something isn't quite right (besides the incest).
The film is structured such that we already know something is wrong with the cousin: he murders women. It's not hard to guess, from the title and witch references what's going on with the family either. It's just a matter of who can be trusted, how much, and what's really going on that is up in the air. The mystery is successfully kept in a slow but elegant pace, with a shocker of an ending.
The goods are delivered in the form of some beautiful and totally naked women being whipped and abused in various ways, a graphic plunge from a highrise, and some good ol' ocular damage. Combined with the Surrey location shooting and familiar English players, this gives the film the feeling of a grizzly, intimate Hammer thriller, not unlike Paranoiac meeting To the Devil a Daughter.
Satan's Slave isn't a great film. It gets off to an awkward beginning. But once it gets going, it plays out as a very satisfying horror/mystery of the devil-cult subgenre. If you enjoy devil-cult films, Satan's Slave is a very well-made one.
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Satan's Slave (1976)
Author: Jared Roberts
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2 comments:
I agree with you for the most part. Pretty entertaining trash. I never knew that Michael Gough and Boris Karloff shared the same birthday until today. Gough (who is great in just about everything) is 96 (!) and still going strong. Apparently he's got a role in the new Alice in Wonderland, which is pretty cool.
Wow, that's awesome. I didn't realize he was still alive, let alone active. The last thing I saw Gough in was Sleepy Hollow, which surprisingly was a whole decade ago. Tim Burton clearly admires him, and rightly. He was great even as the stiff figure at the end of Hell House.
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