Au service de Satan

A woman doing research for her in-progress reference book on cults of the world ends up in a rural Southwestern U.S. dust-bowl where, ironically enough, an extremist offshoot of the Christian faith has been busy with their human-sacrificing rituals.

ENTER THE DEVIL, believe it or not, is an immeasurably more professional item than you will generally find within the ambit of early 70s drive-in horror. The Something Weird video release I viewed is sourced from a terribly worn print...it looks like snow flurries on the screen through nearly the entire movie. Still, that may well be the only way we can currently enjoy this suspenseful little rarity, which sort of plays like a mixture of RACE WITH THE DEVIL and THE LAST PICTURE SHOW.

The arid desert location filming brings a unique, lost and lonely atmosphere to the proceedings which are, at times, rather uneventful...still, this is a surprisingly well-made lower-berth picture which deserves a look(and, hopefully, a better looking print).

5.5/10

Enter the Devil (1972)

** (out of 4)

This low-budget horror film was shot in New Mexico where it is also set. The film tells the story of a bunch of people who disappear without a trace and a local state trooper's attempt to track them down. It turns out that a Satanic cult are behind the kidnappings.

ENTER THE DEVIL is a film that doesn't have much of a cult following but the title puts it along side countless other "devil" or "Satanic" movies that were released after the success of Roman Polanski's ROSEMARY'S BABY. Is the film a masterpiece or something that everyone should check out? Absolutely not but at the same time there are some interesting things that make it worth viewing.

To me the best thing about the film was its music score by Sam Douglas. There's honestly nothing to the score that I would call original but at the same time it does help build up an atmosphere and it just feels dirty like the setting of the picture. I also thought there were some effective shots of the Satanic group walking through the night with their torches lighting up the blackness of night. These two things mixed together were quite good and I'd say much better than some of the other things that we saw in countless pictures like it.

As far as the story goes, it's certainly not that original and in fact it really runs out of gas around hte hour mark. There isn't enough going on in the picture to completely hold your attention but I will say the ending came as a shock and especially considering how blunt it was. Performances are what you'd expect from a film like this but for the most part I'd say the direction by Fred Q. Dobbs was good.

ENTER THE DEVIL isn't going to win any major awards but it's an interesting little film that horror fans should check out.

The action of "Enter the Devil" takes place on a barren Texas wasteland dotted with dirty little towns and mercury mines.A red-robed Satanic cult is kidnapping unlucky victims and sacrificing them in the name of the Devil.Meanwhile a beautiful doctor Leslie Culver is researching the book about devilish cults."Enter the Devil" is a slow-moving and wonderfully dry horror movie set on the desert.There is a brilliantly conveyed aura of utter isolation that kept me intrigued.If you like strange horror/western hybrids give "Enter the Devil" a look.An obscurity that deserves to be seen and appreciated by countless fans of 70's horror.Enjoy your stay in Dry Lake.8 out of 10.

The story is set in some Southwest town. There have been some accidents and the sheriff has been investigating them. When one dies, it's chalked up as just another accident...even though the coroner says this first one was murder. The sheriff didn't believe him but begins to when more are discovered dead due to various 'accidents'. At the same time, a professor from El Paso has arrived in town to look into cult activity. What's really going on here?

"Enter the Devil" is a super low budgeted picture. It was filmed in the middle of nowhere in the Texas desert and stars a cast of unknown actors with little experience. Oddly, however, despite this terrible pedigree, the film manages to be pretty good for what it is. It has some devent chills and manages to entertain despite all its deficits. And, the ending, while NOT subtle or completely believable IS entertaining!

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