L'ossessa - I raccapriccianti delitti di Monroe Park

The plot says, "A man meets a farmgirl who is actually a witch." I think the story is a bit more complicated than that, but sure...

The film has flaws. Oh, yes, it sure does. Poor video quality (perhaps fixable) makes the picture appear even more cheap than it probably was. The plot drags at times, many times, and the villain relies on some rather poor makeup (though this would be less bothersome if she was shown less). Actually, the plot dragging is the worst part. Cut ten minutes off this to improve the pace and the whole movie would instantly be improved.

Most people have probably seen this film on "Mystery Science Theater"... (actually, most people have not seen the film at all). Do not let this fool you. While the movie is bad, it is not quite the terrible film IMDb makes it out to be. I see worse films on a regular basis that somehow get better rankings. So, although this film is bad, its being on the Bottom 100 is in error -- with a few touch-ups, edits, etc. this film has the potential to be something more. Still something average, and not actually good, but far from the worst...

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. :(

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.

Jodie meets Melissa and soon falls for her. But it turns out she's a witch and her 120 year-old sister is a psychotic murderer. You'd THINK this would destroy the couple's relationship...but, oddly, Jodie seems pretty chill about all this.

Over the years, the folks with "Mystery Science Theater 3000" have made fun of many, many, many films. However, sometimes they must have had trouble securing rights to bad films, so they made fun of films that really didn't deserve it. Were these films classics? Not in the least. But a few of the films they made fun of were decent movies, such as "The Girl in Gold Boots", "Mitchell" and "Final Justice". Yet, because they were on "MSTK3000", tons of the show's fans went onto IMDB and gave the movies the lowest possible score. As a result, IMDB's old Bottom 100 List had a couple dozen movies on it that were parodied on "MSTK3000". I am not sure if this was the reason why, but IMDB changed their criteria for admission to this infamous list...increasing the minimum number of votes needed to 10,000 and thus eliminating very obscure low-budget films like these.

Among the two dozen or so movies on the old Bottom 100 list was "The Touch of Satan". Did it deserve to be on the list...or was it like "Mitchell"...a film unfairly targeted for abuse? Yes...and no. While the film is bad, it's not horrid. And, considering the minimal budget and no-name actors, it really isn't that bad. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it was irritating with the old criteria that "The Touch of Satan" made the list and many truly horrendous films didn't...just because of the "MSTK3000 connection.

Thanks to the good, good people of Mystery Science Theater 3000, I have been subjected to a wide variety of tremendously bad movies. Some are worse than others, and some are so horrible that writing commentary on them is almost pointless. (Almost as pointless as why anyone would make the movie in the first place, i.e. 'Santa Conquers the Martians')

But this delightful little film is definitely worth the commentary. Definitely.

The story begins as we're cruising around in a hot, brown maverick with Jodie Thompson: the ill-fated loser/hero of our movie. He winds up at a walnut ranch on his road trip where he meets the frumpy Melissa Strickland, a gal with more than a couple of demons in her closet. Melissa talks Jodie into hangin' around for a couple of days, just enough time to get a first taste of what family life is like at the Strickland residence. Grandma mutilates a few people, Jodie and Melissa do it near her "Dad's" pond, and a couple of souls are sold to Satan. Fin.

The plot itself isn't horrible... but everything else about the movie is. Horrid looking actors, horrid directing and film editing, and let's not forget the horrid dialogue. ("This is where the fish lives" will forever remain one of the funniest, stupidest comments ever said in a film.) In other words, this is a horror film- as in horrific every which way you slice it.

But the film isn't all that unbearable to watch, especially when you have a couple of sarcastic robots at hand. The less seriously you take the movie, the more fun you'll have. And the more fun you have, the easier it will be to make it through the entire movie.

Get's a 2.4 out of 10!