Au service de Satan

This film begins with a man named "Ozzie Perkins" (Happy Shahan) driving through an isolated part of Brewster County, Texas when his tire is shot by an unidentified man with a high-powered rifle which causes the car to veer off the road. Not realizing what exactly happened Ozzie gets out of the car and believing it was a simple blowout decides to walk along the deserted road in search of a gas station. It's during this time that he is offered a ride by a man in a pickup truck. What Ozzie doesn't count on is the fact that this man belongs to a Satanic cult and that he is about to be sacrificed that very night. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a solid, no-frills horror film which managed to keep the mystery going up until the very end. On the flip side, however, it could have used a bit more suspence or horror but that's just my opinion. In any case, while definitely not a great horror film by any means it was good enough for the time spent and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

This is actually not as bad and absurd as it may seem. The story makes sense, and sects are a phenomenon that humanity has suffered from through all ages, for good and for worse, adding constantly a touch of mystery and terror to history, as life would be too commonplace without it. Here the mysterious sect is a band out in the wilderness of the Texas deserts close to Mexico, and there are quite a few Mexicans involved. Things get serious as a professional lady anthropologist is connected in the case, they try to save her by sending her away in time, but it is too late, and she is too curious.

These films and stories of satanism always end in the same way, Dennis Wheatley wrote a number of novels about it, and they never depart from the same pattern. Neither does this film. It is intriguing, fascinating and partly exciting, but afterwards you just brush it off your clothes.

Back in the early 70's when Charlie Manson and chums had just killed the hippie era cultist horror was in vogue. Race With The Devil was probably the artistic high point of the genre,but obscurities like Enter The Devil and Blood Sabbath are arguably of more generic interest to geeks like myself, dwelling more on the aesthetic aspects of crazy cults. There's a lot of aesthetic and thematic potential in the whole cult set up, hoods and robes, chanting, obscure rituals and fires, then there's the whole issue of singularity of purpose and the subsumed individual, someone can be just about anything on the outside but when it comes to their cult affiliation they become just a piece of the one persona. Other films delve deeper into the themes, but Enter The Devil gets good mileage out of the aesthetic and smartly sets things in the eerie isolation of the New Mexico desert for greater effect. It's simple slow burning stuff for the most part, Deputy Sheriff Ozzie Perkins investigating a disappearance and finding that the plot thickens as he goes, there's a good dusty atmosphere and sense of nagging unease punctuated by short sharp shocks, then things rev up with a nail biting two punch driving the film into its final block. There are clichés at hand, like Mexicans being either goofy or feisty, white guys being mostly horny and bigoted and the female lead being largely ineffectual, but somehow the character interactions work nicely, building up a solid feel of place and time both compelling and gently unsettling. The generally likable acting helps, beautiful Leslie Culver is charming enough as the research professor on hand to explain things, Joshua Bryant a helpful and friendly motel owner and Happy Shahan gruff and decent as the Deputy Sheriff. They all gel pretty well, as do the other players, making the slower moments pretty pleasing and producing a quiet, mundane feel that renders the climax all the more effective. I don't know whether the print I saw was the cut US release that got a PG certificate and re-released on Something Weird DVDR or full length (I think it was a S. African VHS but the run time falls between the two listed on IMDb) but the big shock scene in this is marvellous stuff, not graphic but real mean spirited and unsettling, really blows you out of the comfort zone prior established. The actual climax has its problems, but its short and sweet and shouldn't deter anyone who has managed the rest. Little in the way of bloodshed or action but definitely a good 'un, well worth a look for 70's horror fans.

A coven of delusonal religious fanatics conducts brutal human sacrifices in a spooky old silver mine along the Mexican border. Among those parties interested in solving the growing number of missing persons reports and "accidental" deaths in the area are a female anthropology professor working on a book about obscure religions, a tough Texas deputy (co-writer David Cass), a nosy coroner, and a sheriff who wants to quell the negative local rumors until he can get himself re-elected. The culprits are mostly migrant workers who have perversely blended several old religions together into something new and sinister. We are never told any specifics regarding exactly what this cult of killers really believe, or exactly why they do the things they do, but ENTER THE DEVIL is an unusually creepy film nonetheless. Clad in hooded robes, the cultists walk along the rocky terrain in single file at night, carrying flaming torches and chanting in Latin. Their eerily lit cave hideout is a memorable locale for their barbaric rituals. This forgotten low-budget movie has a homemade, semi-documentary feel and an uncomfortably gritty realism, especially with so much time spent on getting to know a lot of ordinary people leading fairly ordinary lives. It is to the director's credit that the film never becomes truly boring in spite of its slow pacing and the down-to-earth nature of most of the character interaction. The fact that the story appears to be taking place in the real world, populated by plain simple folks, somehow makes the horrific parts all the more chilling. In a sick scene that was cut from U. S. prints, a woman is bound with barbed wire and burned to death until we see her body actually fall apart. It all happens fairly quickly and of course it isn't as sadistic and dragged-out as it would be in a movie made today, but it's still pretty disturbing. Modern viewers are liable to be put off by the lack of action and the rather unemotional ending, but this probably scared the bejeebers out of a lot of young people at drive-in showings in the '70s. It's no classic, but it's not bad either. A/k/a DISCIPLES OF DEATH.

The story is set in some Southwest town. There have been some accidents and the sheriff has been investigating them. When one dies, it's chalked up as just another accident...even though the coroner says this first one was murder. The sheriff didn't believe him but begins to when more are discovered dead due to various 'accidents'. At the same time, a professor from El Paso has arrived in town to look into cult activity. What's really going on here?

"Enter the Devil" is a super low budgeted picture. It was filmed in the middle of nowhere in the Texas desert and stars a cast of unknown actors with little experience. Oddly, however, despite this terrible pedigree, the film manages to be pretty good for what it is. It has some devent chills and manages to entertain despite all its deficits. And, the ending, while NOT subtle or completely believable IS entertaining!