L'ossessa - I raccapriccianti delitti di Monroe Park

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.

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...

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.

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.

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. :(