Black Candles

What Black Candles lacks in plot and character development, it makes up for in sleaze and overt sexuality. I can't think of the last time I saw a semi-mainstream film this steamy and overloaded with sex scenes and nudity. Most of the time, it's riding a fine line between softcore and hardcore.

Since all the performances have been dubbed, it's hard to judge many of the performances or the dialogue. The story seems to be a take off on Rosemary's Baby with a paranoid woman thinking she's being roped into a Satantic cult for some nefarious reason. These reasons are never made clear and, besides one nasty scene where a man is stabbed by a sword through his rectum, it's light on horror.

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Black Candles. Before we get into it, here are my ratings:

Story - 1.25 Direction - 1.25 Pace - 1.00 Acting - 1.00 Enjoyment - 1.00

TOTAL - 5.50

Okay, so when the film started, I groaned. Though, it wasn't through pleasure. No! I thought Black Candles was to be a weak-assed softcore porn film with a slight occult twist. If so, it would undoubtedly turn out to be a horrid affair. But luckily for me, I was wrong. But how was I to know as a couple of the alternative titles, Hot Fantasies and Naked Dreams, scream 1970s softcore? They don't even mention anything about the occult.

So I continued to watch. As time ticked by and the film rolled, I realised a story was unfolding on the screen. Moreover, it was a good story. A story about greed and power and the lengths people will go to so they can achieve both. I was impressed the writer didn't hold anything back, even the more bestial sex. At its basic, Black Magic and Satanism are about our more primal urges and needs. Sex and control. Therefore the sex scenes, of which there are plenty, are pivotal to driving the plot. The director does an excellent job of shooting the infernal carnel trists. In fact, he's a damn decent director all-around. The only letdown is the flow of the film. In view of all the sex scenes, the pace is a tad slow throughout, and you may find boredom waiting. Even though the women are stunningly beautiful, I still found my attention faltering at the umpteenth coupling. And though I found myself enjoying the story, the Dallas ending left me wanting. It would have been nice to have the story completed. I know the climax is a twist, a what-if? But it doesn't work.

Another thing that shocked me was how good the cast performed. Because of the sex scene at the movie's beginning, I wasn't expecting too much. So when the actresses and actors proved their talent, I was pleasantly surprised. Their performances and the director's skills made this an enjoyable experience.

If you like occult films, then Black Candles is for you. You may have to search for it as it goes by many names - and don't shelve it because of the ones mentioned above. I think they should have gone with the literal translation of the Spanish title - Sex Rites Of The Devil - it sums the film up perfectly. It is well written and skillfully shot, though you think there's too much sex, which dulls down the story.

Feel free to check out my Absolute Horror list to see where I have ranked Black Candles.

Take Care & Stay Well.

Known in the UK as Black Candles, the original Spanish title Los Ritos Sexuales del Diablo sums it up a lot better. The characters in this 1981 film from Jose Ramon Larraz spend most of the time naked and jumping on one another. Saucy German actress Helga Line, pushing 50 when the film was made, leads the way with an erotic, knicker-shedding performance as a middle-class woman at the centre of a Satanic cult. Drawing heavily on Rosemary's Baby and set in England, this is a daft piece of soft core in which the devil's work is done largely by the genitalia.

I'm not ruining anything when I inform you that you get to see a woman have sex with a goat in this movie. If that is your thing, then your movie has arrived.

A woman and her husband go to see her estranged sister in the family mansion in the woods. Her sister is a creepy lady to say the least, and she seems to have interests that go beyond family love. On the side a group of unsavory characters show up and begin enacting all kinds of pagan rituals.

The plotting is pretty weak and the characters are pretty dumb. The woman sticks around even after her husband starts turning into a jerk and hanging out with the pagans, even continues the have sex with him. On the exploitative side of things, there is much bared flesh and a couple of kinky couplings, but nothing that hasn't been better somewhere else. Oh, and the aforementioned goat-sex scene.

Most viewers won't make it to the end. Exploitation fans will ride it out, but will be left wanting more.

4/10

Not a pretty film, this rather vigorous satanic sex film is filmed on location in England with a cast of largely unknown Spanish and English 'actors'. Actually the fact that this is such a mixed cast and of such mixed age does add a little something to what is otherwise not a lot. The leading coven lady was coming up 50 when she made this and that doesn't stop her stripping for sex at regular intervals. Similarly the men, they don't care if they might be fat and hairy. So plot wise this is a non starter but as a representation of a small countryside satanic group ready and willing to excite their goat into some mixed action, this is probably more realistic than many. Basically this looks like lusty amateurs giving it their sleazy all.