La endemoniada

Demon Witch Child is Amando de Ossorio's answer to The Exorcist. It involves an evil witch who is killed and later takes possession of an innocent little girl to continue her misdeeds. Most people are aware of de Ossorio through his Blind Dead movies. To be honest, I didn't realize he had other horror outings. So this was a surprise to me when I picked up a "Grindhouse" box set which featured Demon Witch Child. After viewing it, I wish I still didn't know de Ossorio made other films. Not only is it a terrible film, but it is also on the boring side. A cardinal sin in my book. It never once shows the promise or atmosphere that Tombs of the Blind Dead had. Unfortunately, I still feel that de Ossorio is an overrated director.

Spanish horror director Amando de Ossorio will always be best known for his Blind Dead series and rightly so because they're good films, and also because most of the rest of the stuff that he directed isn't up to much. Italian and Spanish filmmakers would often make their own versions of popular American films, and it's not surprising that Exorcist rip-offs almost became their own sub-genre after 1973. The Possessed is clearly yet another copy of Willian Friedkin's groundbreaking horror hit, and while it's not very good and has nothing on the earlier classic; to my greatest surprise, this film is both not bad and definitely one of the better Exorcist rip-offs. The plot focuses on the daughter of a politician who becomes possessed. Sometime earlier, an old woman suspected of being a witch is accused of kidnapping young children and kills herself by jumping out the police station window. The politician's daughter later has an encounter with a strange woman who gives her a necklace. It's not long before the girl is speaking foreign languages and turning her head round one hundred and eighty degrees...

Despite being a rip-off, this film actually has a few good ideas of its own. The idea of the girl being possessed by a witch rather than some demonic force actually works quite well and the film has a couple of subplots, such as the one that sees the token young priest being chased by a girl against his wishes. This plot doesn't have much to do with the film's central idea, but it's interesting and amusing. It also seems like director Amando de Ossorio was trying to have a swipe at the church through a lot of the events in this film - including the subplot with the girl and the priest. The film was obviously made on a shoestring budget and as such there isn't much room for anything spectacular. The special effects are largely inept and unconvincing and the acting is matched by some truly atrocious dubbing. The only real notable cast member is Marián Salgado, and she is only notable for the fact that she was cast in the film because she was the Spanish dubbing actor for Linda Blair in The Exorcist (a nice touch in my opinion). Overall, The Possessed is lacklustre, but it's not a bad way to spend ninety minutes and it is one of Amando de Ossorio's best films outside of the Blind Dead series.

This film apparently was a Spanish attempt to cash in on the success of The Exorcist, which came out the year before. To sum up the cliche'd plot, a cult of Satanic gypsies kidnaps a little baby boy, and the police arrest an old gypsie witch that they suspect has the child. The witch jumps out of a window to her death, but manages to possess the police chief's teenage daughter. The girl starts getting a foul mouth on her, and later transforms into a teenager version of the old witch and sacrifices the missing baby to Satan and then proceeds to kill a few more people for good measure. After the little witch tries to kidnap her baby cousin to sacrifice, finally a priest tries to exorcise her leading to the rather pointless ending.

Overall, the movie was very slow and had little originality to offer. The violence wasn't particularly gory or graphic and there aren't many special effects to speak of. The only good thing I can say for this movie is that they did a good job of making the transformed version of the young girl look a lot like the old witch.

Demon Witch Child (1975)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Amando de Ossorio, director behind the four Blind Dead films, wrote and directed this rip of The Exorcist but he adds a few neat twists to make the film stand on its own. A young baby goes missing and the police suspect a local Satan worshipper so they bring her in for questioning. During the interrogation the witch praises Satan and then kills herself but soon her evil spirit returns and takes over the body of a young girl. There are countless items in this film that borrow heavily from The Exorcist but do Ossorio also adds some new stuff like the twist of the possession coming due to a witch. There's also a couple eerie scenes involving the witches and the ending is quite good. However, like all these Italian rips, there's a lot being ripped off from the troubled priest to the dirty talking little girl. The dubbing to this film is pretty bad so the dirty talk from the child comes off with more laughs than anything else. This is no great masterpiece but it's certainly one of the better rips I've seen.

Amando de Ossorio will probably always be my Spanish horror-hero because he made the utterly amazing "Blind Dead"-quadrology and also the even more amazing (but sadly obscure) "Lorelei's Grasp". His horror films, even the less good ones, are hugely atmospheric and often manage to come across as genuinely creepy even though the subject matter is far-fetched and implausible. This theory works for "Demon Witch Child", too. The film itself isn't impressive and certainly not very original. A young girl possessed by satanic forces that cause her to speak foreign languages and make her body to float in thin air? Now, where have we seen that before? Yes, this basically is the umpteenth European imitation of William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" but, please, don't allow this to spoil the fun. It's an adorably weird exploitation effort, with quite a collection of deranged characters and inexplicably compelling sub plots. In a quiet little community, a gypsy woman is suspected of kidnapping infants and commits suicide by jumping out of the police station's (closed) window. She avenges herself by using her witchcraft powers to possession over the eminent politician's nine-year-old daughter. In this younger body, the old witch can carelessly continue sacrificing newborn children to Satan… Her concerned father and nanny call in the help of a young priest, but he's in the middle of being stalked by a girl who can't accept that he chose God over her. This last part describes a completely irrelevant but entertaining sub plot, by the way. Believe it or not, but the scariest thing about this movie is the young actress who plays Susan! And not even during the sequences where the gypsy witch possesses her soul! No offense to her, but Marián Salgado looks almost naturally uncanny and definitely NOT like an innocent schoolgirl! The elderly actress who plays the actual witch looks pretty creepy too, but at least she was supposed to have this effect. Sadly enough, "Demon Witch Child" disappoints in the gore department. There's no exploitative bloodshed and Amando de Ossorio only hits at gruesome events, like a castration and a brutal baby killing. Perhaps the lack of budget is to blame, but that sure didn't stop our director when he made the "Blind Dead" movies. The possession-effects are nice and cheesy and the eerie music is very efficient. Personally, I have a weakness for shameless rip-offs (I usually enjoy them even more than the real thing) but most horror fans will likely enjoy this film, as long as they're not too demanding.