The Touch of Satan

I found this far more watchable than most others seem to have.

A farmer inspects a noise in his barn, which we can see came from a doll. He encounters a killer with a pitchfork. The scene following seems to have a family commenting on the death, suggesting the guy turned out OK. However, it turns out they were talking about something else, as the killer stumbles in - and the family is committed to hiding the crime.

A young man traveling to California stops in the town, and meets a young woman by her family's pond. They take a liking to each other, and she invites him to stay. Unfortunately, they're the family from the opening scene.

She claims to be a witch, and he's skeptical. She claims also to be possessed by the devil, but this seems to refer more to ownership than the devil actually being inside her controlling her actions.

The movie is slow, but has a nice 70s flavor, and a bucolic farm setting. For the gorehounds, there's the opening pitchfork scene (not terribly gory), and a much bloodier kill with a hook used for handling hay bales. There's a flashback to 100+ years ago of the punishment of a witch. The ending is perfect.

Much to my joy, I was looking for something on my MST3K videotapes this weekend, and I stumbled across this movie on one of them...a new MST3K that I had taped years ago and never watched! Joy! Ok, so I watched this movie, and it's honestly not that bad! Yes, it's a bit cheesy in a 1970s sort of way, and there are a few pauses when people are speaking, and there are lines like "This is where the fish live", but this movie is really not that awful! Watching a film like "Manos" or "Red Zone Cuba" without the MST3K treatment would make a person long for the sweet release of death, but I think I could have watched this film without the riffing and still have enjoyed it. I thought it was a decent movie. True, it had plotholes big enough to drive a barfed-on Charger through, but it was a pretty decent movie. And I have a HUGE crush on the main character, Melissa. Touched by Satan or not, she's a sweetie who only wanted to help her sister. :(

How is this film stupid? Let us count the ways:

1) It centers around the two most lackadaisical characters to ever be the subject of a film. Jody and Melissa spend half the movie sitting in uncomfortable silence, and the other half trading dialogue in accents that never reach any level of emotion, not even when Melissa's loony "grandmother" Lucinda starts skewering people with farm implements.

2) Melissa and Lucinda live out in the middle of nowhere, on what Jody insists on calling a "walnut ranch." Note to screenwriter: ranches usually raise livestock. Walnuts are more likely to be found in an orchard.

3) Besides Melissa and Lucinda, the ranch is also home to Luther and Molly. We assume they're Melissa's parents, until circumstances prove that impossible. Who they really are is aparently none of our business.

4) Melissa insists she's possessed by the devil. Jody refuses to believe her. This will persist, with no variation, for most of the film.

5) In a flashback, we learn Melissa and Lucinda are really sisters, and that Lucinda was nearly burned at the stake for witchcraft by an angry mob (more on them later) until Melissa sold her soul to Satan to save her. This scene, we later learn, takes place sometime in the 19th century. Blaming witches for everything had pretty much gone out of vogue by that time, although blaming minorities was pretty popular, if I remember my history.

6) Satan apparently is inconsistant in his deals. Melissa is allowed to remain young, while Lucinda ages. Then again, Lucinda in her youth looked something like Frida Khalo, so she didn't miss much.

7) About that angry mob--okay, angry isn't the best word for them, since they have about the energy and enthusiasm of a checkout line. How are we supposed to feel about them? They arrive with torches to burn Lucinda for witchcraft, but then it seems Lucinda really is guilty of the crime. It's one thing to portray Christians as narrow-minded, superstitious, and hypocritical, but what happens when they're actually right?

8) During the burning, the mob breaks out into "Amazing Grace." Aparently they only know one verse to the song, since they repeat it endlessly.

9) To save Melissa from the Devil, Jody must sleep with her. We're not sure why this is.

10) Once freed from the clutches of evil, Melissa begins showing her age, which is around a hundred and twenty. Most films would allow Melissa to die, so that her tormented soul may finally be at rest, but nooo--Jody has to sell his soul to the Devil to get her back. This might be a harrowing statement on the powers of darkness, until I recall that having people like Jody and Melissa in the camp isn't exactly an asset for the forces of Hell.

If you like self punishment this movie is for you. How anyone could be able to watch this un-MSTed without blowing their brains out is beyond me.

The acting of the unwitting boy and the 200+ old (but only looks in her 20s) witch are just horrible. Were these two not aware that 15 second pauses between lines are not good ways to keep an audience interested? Not that the other actors are much better. Melissa's "parents" are out-acted by pot holders and the old (at least 190 years old and at least looks her age) crazy sister of Melissa. Even Satan didn't do anything cool in this movie, nor did he/she even bother to appear (physically) in it.

The plot is in a whole world of disarray. They left out the part of the script where it is explained how the simple Ma and Pa farmer folk got to be the witch's and her sister's parents. The walnut farm which doesn't have a single walnut tree on the property, and if there is they like to eat hay. Getting rid of a cop and his car off the edge of a cliff will attract absolutely no attention to the local police of foul play. Even though he happen to be calling in on the CB when he was killed by the psycho sister. Oh yes, and finally old decrepid granny-looking women can sneak up on almost anyone and kill them (even in broad daylight!). The ending is the typical devil schlock. (I won't ruin it for those who actually WANT to watch this movie.:P) But it ain't surprising.

The most hilarious line in the movie is where the two "lovebirds" are standing and staring at a lake and Melissa says, "This is where the fish live." Nobody (or movie) can be taken seriously after a line like that.

Not even the real touch of satan could save this movie. The scene that sums this movie up is the one of the boy puking beside his car. It's exactly what you'll do if you had to sit through the *PURE UNADULTERATED EVIL* of "The Touch of Satan"!

Thank God for MST3K...

Yes, the movie is pretty bad, and probably deserves the "heckling" it receives when being aired on MST-3000 on Sci-Fi channel. But it is still watchable, all the way to the end. I actually felt a sort of pity towards it: it seemed the movie had a feeling of wasted potential, like someone who could have been successful in life if only they had been allowed to attend a better school.

It brings to mind an excellent comment I read by a reviewer who was commenting on the remade (1998) version of the movie "Psycho" - basically, that it was so pointless, afterall there are so many bad movies out there that deserve to be remade, so why would Hollywood waste time and money remaking the good movies, it makes no sense...

And this movie fits that category exactly. It screams for re-make. It has all the makings of a pretty interesting, if not downright creepy, story: a traveller (driving a Maverick no less) who stumbles off the beaten path, into a remote out-in-the-boonies country location, where he encounters a good-looking girl living with sweaty people... But, she is not what she seems, because in reality she is 127 years old - her youth and vitality being due to a pact she made with Satan a long, long time ago... Oh, and there is death by pitchfork, and rural cops who even consider cowchips in the course of their crime investigation.

Yes, there is a veritable gold mine of possibilities here. So, I nominate this movie as one of the bad ones that urgently needs to be remade, only with better production values, better script, better acting, better overall budget. (And a better soundtrack, too - it needs more songs in it than "Amazing Grace"). I see lots of potential here. Too bad I'm not a producer or a director, I could really do a lot with the basic ingredients that are at hand here. And if the remake doesn't work, well, "Zah!"