Here is a movie that deserves to be seen again, an ultra low budget independently produced regional horror effort made out in the dusty hills of New Mexico about a coven of migrant workers who worship Satan. Contemporary social commentary aside this is a surprisingly gritty and grim little film made all the more authentic, convincing and haunting by it's low rent, jury-rigged feel. With a cast made up of stock actors, stunt performers, non-professional local color types and a couple name brand character actors, ENTER THE DEVIL has the feel of a very personal effort by someone who had a specific vision in mind. By limiting what it tries to accomplish the film succeeds where many others of a similar vein feel silly. Check out THE DEVIL'S RAIN for an example of what I mean.
Half of the film concerns a youngish state trooper's efforts to track down a missing person. His investigation leads him to an area hunting lodge & silver mine operation where the local bigots gather to drink beer, shoot things, and pat the Latina serving wench on the fanny. Meanwhile a pretty state employed anthropologist stops by to continue her studies into the somewhat pagan customs of the local Mexican workforce. Bodies are found, ominous accidents + close-calls befall the interloping Caucasian types, and the serving wench earns the wrath of her own people by apparently just being present to be manhandled & groped at by the bigoted hunters. It isn't easy being pretty some days.
All of it is actually rather unremarkable up until a segment about halfway through the film when the inquisitive trooper follows reports of lights out in the desert & the sound of chanting voices by the area loon, who as usual is the only person who really has a grasp of what's at hand. The trooper (David Cass, a former Burt Lancaster stunt double who co-wrote the film & served as 2nd unit director) eventually stumbles upon the horrible secret of this migrant cult in a scene that stops the film cold -- A fetching young lady being dragged into the desert by the coven who lash her to a post with barbed wire and proceed to burn her alive in the most stomach wrenching witch burning scene since CONQUEROR WORM.
It's not that it's unduly graphic, but like CONQUEROR WORM's burning the implied suffering and sadism of the incident is out of proportion with anything the film shows viewers up until that point. It is gruesome, horrifying, grimly realistic and concludes with the sight of the trooper gagging and coughing his way out of a billowing cloud of smoke from the burning body, which in itself will leave viewers feeling queasy for hours. The film also eschews any kind of erotic angle to the incident: There is no Sadean fantasy at work here, only stinging barbed wire, hammered nails and burning, cracking flesh. Try to find an uncensored imported print with gibberish subtitles, the domestic North American prints were all trimmed to secure a PG rating for a good time at the drive in. Yee haw.
After that the film settles back into the routine as the pretty anthropologist starts to get that sinking feeling that the disappearances, deaths, mysterious lights and Gregorian chanting hooded ominous figures out in the evil cave of Satan may be related. Gee, do you think? We get further police procedural footage including medical examination lingo, local political intrigue and an annoyingly predictable twist ending that anybody familiar with this kind of stuff will be able to dial in before the 3rd reel is loaded. The film then proceeds to climax with a bizarre display of xenophobia as the state trooper brigade closes in with their M-16 automatic rifles blazing as they gun down the coven en-masse. Pretty twisted idea of fun: no wonder this one generated cult interest.
So here is a sleeper of a movie that has been left behind by the sands of time -- the only way to find it are on expensive & rarely found prior rental tapes or dubiously sourced public domain releases by underground companies. Nobody seems interested in trying to revive this one which is a shame, it's a startling little bit of regional horror and one of the least silly examples of the Satanic Coven fad that was so popular during the early - mid 1970s. Watch it as a double bill with the excellent RACE WITH THE DEVIL, which remains the watershed effort from the idiom. The two will serve to compliment each other even though the low budget and seemingly aimless pacing of the first 3rd of ENTER THE DEVIL may annoy those easily bored. But once you get to that burning scene this film is perhaps even more unsettling, and nobody ever said that art had to be pretty.
7/10
