La Soeur de Satan

This film suffers from a case of not knowing what it wants to be. It starts off as a horror film about a murderous witch and continues in that mode by utilizing one of the best horror actresses of the time in Barbara Steele (as "Veronica"). Unfortunately, rather than using her talents to any great extent the director (Michael Reeves) completely omits her character for almost half of the film and decides to focus more on her husband "Phillip" (Ian Ogilvy), the innkeeper "Ladislav Groper" (Mel Welles) and "Count von Helsing" (John Karlsen) instead. And while they all performed adequately there seemed to be a noticeable void without her presence. To make matters even more strange, the movie then detours from being a horror film to a comedy with the local Transylvanian police bumbling around like the Keystone Cops. And then at the very end, Barbara Steele is reintroduced and immediately brings back a bit of horror into the production. Now, it's okay to have a little humor in a horror film. However, too much humor (as in this case) tends to water down whatever tension has been built up and generally creates an uneven feel to a movie. And I think that is what happened to this film.

When an 18th-Century witch is captured by local townsfolk and dispatched in the middle of a like by way of dunking, her final words are that of her return to seek her revenge. Flash forward 200 years , when a woman driving along the same lake is run off the road by unseen forces and possessed by the witch there will be hell to pay.

A fun film with one of the worse witch makeups in movie history. The film has its' endearing moments such as a car chase at the end that reminded me of a Keystone Cops flick. Some cheesy dubbing and even cheesier acting made it enjoyable for me.

An English couple are vacationing in Communist Romania... don't ask me why. After a bad run-in with a local innkeeper appropriately named Groper, they run their car into the lake. The man (Ian Ogilvy) is saved, but pulled up with him is not his wife (Barbara Steele), but a 200-year old witch named Vardella.

Now, the first thing you might be asking is this: why would Dark Sky Films, distributor of some of the finest gems in horror and exploitation, release a film that has been in the public domain for years and not very widely praised? There's a very good answer to that: because Dark Sky, among their many other talents, takes one man's trash and turns it into another man's treasure. They somehow uncovered an original print, and have given us the film in beautiful widescreen with a very nice, crisp picture... and if that isn't enough, they tracked down Ogilvy and Steele for an exclusive audio commentary. (Also, if you're like me, you'll appreciate the subtitles.) Can you beat that?

Seriously, though, the film isn't even bad. The characters are interesting and the story has a smooth flow. Really, it's the characters that sell this film. VonHelsing is an interesting modern incarnation of his namesake. The Romanians have a great comedic value with their communist jokes. After one man is found dead, a policeman turns to another and asks, "Is he talking?" The other says, "No, he's dead." So the first one says, "That's obstruction of justice." And then shortly after we get a chase scene that some critics have frowned on for its silliness, but I wonder if they hadn't been paying attention -- the cops were hilarious throughout the film.

Writer/director Michael Reeves has to be given plenty of credit for this. In his early twenties when he made this (before moving on to his masterpiece, "Witchfinder General"), it's a good tale in the same vein as later Hammer Horror stories. The only real complaint I have is the top billing for Barbara Steele, who only appears in the film for maybe fifteen minutes. I understand her popularity at the time, and she's something of a horror icon, but it's a bit misleading to make her so prominent in the advertising.

Thank you, Dark Sky, for taking what was a film dead in the water and reviving it. Modern horror fans may find it a bit slow and bulky, but anyone who loves the classics will find this appealing with plenty of good scenes and grisly visuals -- eye gouging, impalement... witches beware! A truly enjoyable experience.

"In the 18th Century, a terrible witch is punished by the townspeople she terrorized by being drowned in a lake. Two hundred years later, a newlywed couple is driving near the lake when their car crashes into the water. The husband comes to the surface unharmed but his young bride emerges from the water possessed by the spirit of the witch, looking for revenge upon the descendants of the townspeople who had killed her," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

Writer/director Michael Reeves's "The Sister of Satan" is an exasperating feature. After showing great promise with "Witchfinder General" (1968), Mr. Reeves died of a drug overdose. Although this film (aka "The She Beast") should not be considered representative, the opening and a few other scenes are nicely done. The idea to bring the story into the "Dracula universe" was a good one - but, the comic aspects do not fit. Worst of all, the sizzling pairing of Ian Ogilvy (as Philip) and Barbara Steele (as Veronica) is given short shrift.

***** The Sister of Satan (1966) Michael Reeves ~ Ian Ogilvy, Barbara Steele, John Karlsen

Hello, this odd film has had some s**t reviews and I feel I have to wade in and defend this monster. It's actually quite funny, the old witch looks extraordinarily ugly and her screaming had me laughing and laughing. I'd recommend this to anyone who can laugh at the very awful and enjoys a good cheesy political comment. Come on old fart reds, (it's all over now anyway), the hammer and sickle scene is meant to be as ridiculous as the rest of the film. I recommend that this wonderful film gets its very own category: Horror/Ridiculous plus a Bit of Nasty. The only horror in the film stems from how awful people can really be, and it works.