Au service de Satan

This film begins with a man named "Ozzie Perkins" (Happy Shahan) driving through an isolated part of Brewster County, Texas when his tire is shot by an unidentified man with a high-powered rifle which causes the car to veer off the road. Not realizing what exactly happened Ozzie gets out of the car and believing it was a simple blowout decides to walk along the deserted road in search of a gas station. It's during this time that he is offered a ride by a man in a pickup truck. What Ozzie doesn't count on is the fact that this man belongs to a Satanic cult and that he is about to be sacrificed that very night. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a solid, no-frills horror film which managed to keep the mystery going up until the very end. On the flip side, however, it could have used a bit more suspence or horror but that's just my opinion. In any case, while definitely not a great horror film by any means it was good enough for the time spent and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

A coven of delusonal religious fanatics conducts brutal human sacrifices in a spooky old silver mine along the Mexican border. Among those parties interested in solving the growing number of missing persons reports and "accidental" deaths in the area are a female anthropology professor working on a book about obscure religions, a tough Texas deputy (co-writer David Cass), a nosy coroner, and a sheriff who wants to quell the negative local rumors until he can get himself re-elected. The culprits are mostly migrant workers who have perversely blended several old religions together into something new and sinister. We are never told any specifics regarding exactly what this cult of killers really believe, or exactly why they do the things they do, but ENTER THE DEVIL is an unusually creepy film nonetheless. Clad in hooded robes, the cultists walk along the rocky terrain in single file at night, carrying flaming torches and chanting in Latin. Their eerily lit cave hideout is a memorable locale for their barbaric rituals. This forgotten low-budget movie has a homemade, semi-documentary feel and an uncomfortably gritty realism, especially with so much time spent on getting to know a lot of ordinary people leading fairly ordinary lives. It is to the director's credit that the film never becomes truly boring in spite of its slow pacing and the down-to-earth nature of most of the character interaction. The fact that the story appears to be taking place in the real world, populated by plain simple folks, somehow makes the horrific parts all the more chilling. In a sick scene that was cut from U. S. prints, a woman is bound with barbed wire and burned to death until we see her body actually fall apart. It all happens fairly quickly and of course it isn't as sadistic and dragged-out as it would be in a movie made today, but it's still pretty disturbing. Modern viewers are liable to be put off by the lack of action and the rather unemotional ending, but this probably scared the bejeebers out of a lot of young people at drive-in showings in the '70s. It's no classic, but it's not bad either. A/k/a DISCIPLES OF DEATH.

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 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!