"Lucifer's Women" follows an illusionist who believes himself to be an incarnation of Svengali (the character from the novel Trilby). Obsessed with the occult, he begins a search for a female human sacrifice.
This film was more or less lost to time, and is an example of a feature whose production and release history is probably more interesting than the film itself. Shot by porno director Paul Aratow and released in 1974, the film was subsequently acquired by Al Adamson, who chopped it up, filmed new scenes with new actors (including John Carradine!), and made a hodgepodge new feature called "Doctor Dracula" (which I have not seen, but which is, by most accounts, utterly incoherent).
That's not to say that "Lucifer's Women" is not interesting, though; while not high art, it is a fascinating look at early-1970s counterculture, particularly occult subculture. There is a lot of dark arts and sex magic mumbo jumbo here (Anton LaVey, none other than the leader of the church of Satan himself was purportedly a consultant on the film) that is sometimes perturbing, and the ritual sequences are mildly effective. It's an affair that has "sleaze" written all over it, and in fact has a lot in common (at least visually) with "Mardi Gras Massacre," another occult-themed Z-grade horror flick from the same period.
A lot of the supernatural mechanics of the plot are vague and seem sloppily put together, but the film is just weird enough to maintain interest. The whole thing culminates in an orgiastic ritual that is bonkers, and the last shot has a "Scooby Doo" quality that doesn't quite work. All that being said, "Lucifer's Women" is fascinating simply as a time capsule of 1970s San Francisco, as well as the countercultural fascination with Satanism that spurred a whole subgenre of horror films during this time that were, for the most part, badly-made. "Lucifer's Women" is certainly of this ilk, but it's an oddity that is worth watching as something of a relic. 6/10.
