L'ossessa - I raccapriccianti delitti di Monroe Park

A young man named Jody drives across country and decides to stop and have lunch in a small town where, he's been told, a "chromichidal maniac" is on the loose. He meets a young pretty girl named Melissa, falls instantly love and follows her home for dinner. Dinner turns into a weekend and we slowly (very slowly) learn that Melissa is no ordinary seventeen year old girl. She's a 120 year old witch who sold her soul to Satan, and the incredibly wrinkled woman she claims is her great grandmother is actually her little sister...and a "chromichidal maniac" to boot. Seems Melissa sold her soul to save the weird old chick from being burned at the stake by an angry mob 120 years earlier. Now, it seems, nothing can save Melissa from the curse...except perhaps for Jody's love. Will he sell his own soul to save her? Who cares?

This 70s effort is filled with bad acting, a terrible script and a story that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The flashbacks to the 1850s still manage to look like the 1970s and the angry mob is more of a slightly irritated gathering. Everyone looks stoned and delivers their lines in half hearted monotones, eyes glazed and faces expressionless. And Jody has got to be the stupidest kid yet to appear on screen. He hangs around even though he's clearly not wanted and continues to hang around even after things begin to get menacing. Not even the sight of Gramma-Sister eviscerating a cop with a scythe can scare him away for long. No, he's too much in love with Melissa, a drab farmgirl with minimal beauty whose claims of Witchy-ness cannot penetrate Jody's thick skull and sound any sort of alarm bells. And who the hell are those people that Melissa is living with? They're not her parents, but they're in on the Dreadful Truth, so what gives? This is just one of the many glaring plot holes that litter this lackluster film. Not even the horrific murders and the fiery finale could keep me from nodding off. This movie just kind of plods along like a cinematic sedative until it finally peters out and ends with no fanfare whatsoever.

Guaranteed to cure insomnia.

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!"

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!

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...

This is completely stupid. I joke to film making everywhere.

::The main problems::

Acting is so terrible, it actually made me cry when I heard the dialogue being spurted out of the actors mouths. Not one of the actors could act and I bet they never got another job afte that. though they were probably too busy doing drugs to complete any other movies.

The story is very lame, stupid, and annoying. Choke full of crap that would make even the most amateur film maker want to stop making movies. We get something in the story about witches and Satan, but nothing really pans out at all. It all just falls flat within the first three minutes of this lame movie, but by then you have probably turned the channel already. Which if I was not viewing the MST3K version, I proboby would have done within the first minute of this trash!

The mood is overdone completely and really goes into overkill within the last few minutes of the movie. I think they tried to set too much mood and didn't take enough time on the plot, which might of helped this movie.

The special effects are lame, and really only consist of bad face make-up which is really very lame. Though it is probably just the time period and might not have been helped.

I do not want to recommend this movie to anyone....At anytime....Anywhere. This movie is very lame, and a venture down amateur film making lane! If you take a stop on crap film making street first of course.

Do not see this movie unless it is with the help of Mike Nelson, Crow T. Robot, & Tom Servo. You can find it on Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume 5. You might be sorry if you do not view it with them, as it is a headache inducing movie.