Satan’s Slave (1976)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: A young woman is inadvertently used by satanists to be used as a sacrifice to resurrect an ancient ancestor with evil powers. 

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• With Michael Craze!!! He’s downright CRAZZZYYY.
• Nice opening title art actually. It’s kinda like a kids’ picture book of Satan.
• Goat headed satanists. Yawn.
• Virginal human sacrifice. Yawn.
• Beewbs!
• This satanic priest is Michael Gough better known as the Burton/Schumacher Alfred Pennyworth.
• Cut to couple on a date in an old gothic mansion in England. Why is the fella wearing a tuxedo on this dinner date when the lady is wearing casual clothes? Is this what Englishmen always do on dates? Overdress?
• Nothing like a rape attempt to ruin a date.
• More Beewbs.
• Well he stopped after you finally yelled stop and “leave me alone.” I guess your grunts of disapproval went way over the fella’s head.
• As the lady is leaving and opening the door, the fella runs and thrusts the door on her cranium knocking her out. Then he slices her a few times in the abdomen. He stops when a car approaches the house. When a woman opens the door and sees the sight she simply gasps and we cut to…
• …another English couple waking up and giving exposition. Great pacing so far.
• So the uncle of this new girl, Catherine, whom she didn’t even knew existed despite living with her folks still, demanded that she stay with him in his country estate. Seems perfectly kosher to me.
• Unnecessary conflict occurs as the family is driving towards the estate when out of nowhere the father has head pain and crashes the car into a tree.
• WHAT?! As Catherine goes towards the house to get help for the car accident the car explodes!!
• Inside the house Catherine awakens and Michael Gough asks if she’s alright? Catherine says yes. Did she forget that her mom and dad exploded just moments ago?! Maybe it’s just a British thing.

For the last time, I said you cannot dress up like Bat-girl!

• Plus she doesn’t even know these people!!!!
• A lot of good looking dames in this quaint little British horror flick.
• For some reason, in the morning Catherine wakes up and is distressed because of a dream. I suppose she’s in shock but come on she’s not even remotely disturbed by what has transpired. Plus another lady tells her to not to “upset herself.” Haha.
• Oh now finally she’s questioning the reason why her family’s car spontaneously combusted.
• Michael Gough tells her that they didn’t want to delay the funeral further so they are burying her folks in the backyard this afternoon. Sure why wait?
• Instead of grieving, Catherine is talking to Stephen (the fella in the tux earlier in the flick) and complementing him on how beautiful the house is. He then takes her on a tour of the grounds.
• Catherine tells him that she sometimes has premonitions. Too bad she never had one about her family blowing up.
• He told her that they wanted to sell the estate but couldn’t because of what happened there. But he never tells her what. And she never asks. Thanks to flashbacks (doubling for a premonition I suppose) we see a witch torture scene complete with T&A.
• While Catherine was having her vision, Stephen leaves her in the woods alone. Nice.
• I’m still not certain who the other lady is living at the house.
• I think they tried hard to make Michael Gough look like Vincent Price but he looks more like John Hurt.
• I’m still wrapping my brain at how calm, cool & collected Catherine is during through this ordeal. I’d be on the first taxi back home to be with her boyfriend.
• Is this other woman, Frances, Stephen’s girlfriend? Or does she just wish to be? Either way, why is she there?!
• Next scene was Frances rifling through papers on a desk. That is all.
• Somehow now they are cursing the boyfriend of Catherine with apparently the most annoying sound in the world in a stuck elevator. He also cut his hand on some broken glass earlier but I have no idea if that’s important or not.
• He then goes to the top of the building and jumps off to his very grisly and awesomely special effected death. Kudos for that death.

Surely he had a bloody well good time that old chap!

• Stephen and Catherine went for a drive. To where is anyone’s guess because all they did was park and have wine in the car and then drove back home.
• OK, she spilt some wine on her skirt. But they sure are making a big deal about it. Just get some club soda for crying out loud.
• More beewbs! Full frontal again. Satanists sure know how to party. I just don’t know who these ladies are or where they are though.
• Does the family know she gets premonitions? Like is that key to her being important to them or is that just a strange coincidence?
• Catherine quickly forgot that she had a boyfriend.
• More beewbs! I think every woman save for Frances and Catherine’s mom has shown their ta-tas.
• Catherine says that she feels marvelous because of Stephen and how he made her fall in love with him. Easiest courtship ever. They shared like 15 minutes of screen time and be barely charmed her at all. Must’ve been that nice car drive to nowhere.
• Catherine calls her boyfriend but somehow Frances is on the other line telling her lies about his whereabouts. But how this worked while Frances is still in the same house as Catherine is wonderfully confusing. Was Catherine supposed to dial “9” to get an outside line?
• Frances is explaining Necromancy to Catherine. She’s taking it all well.
• Why is Frances telling her about her uncle and cousin’s evil scheme? Is it because she’s in love with Stephen?
• Wait, it’s Catherine’s birthday tomorrow? She left her boyfriend to go to her reclusive uncle when it was her birthday weekend. What a dope.
• Now Stephen is beating the shit out of Frances in her bedroom and no one hears it. Whatever. I’m still not sure what Frances’ role here is.
• Stephen impaled Frances and hung her up with a knife in her mouth. Sick!

What’s the matter, cleaver for yer tongue?

• I’m almost done with this picture and I’m still not sure who’s the “slave” of Satan like the title suggests.
• Jawas!
• NICE! Catherine still had a nail file from the room she was locked in earlier and jabbed it in Stephen’s eye to escape the Satanic ritual. I really thought she would stick it in his neck or hand or someplace less gruesome.\\
• Now her father’s back? Obviously some trickery is afoot. Was the one who brought her here a fake or this one?
• How friggin’ gullible is Catherine?! This “father” of hers just convinced her that she’s been sleepwalking and everything has been a bad dream.
• This is some very weak attempt to shock the audience that she was indeed dreaming and that her uncle is not a Satanist/killer but I know in about 1 minute there’s going to be an unnecessary reveal.
• Oh no. Her father’s a satanist too. I. Totally. Didn’t. See. That. Coming.
• Sorry Catherine you’re dead meat. All because you’re dumber than a bag of dirt.

Scare Level: This was a bit of a bore. The atmosphere and gothic set deign of the mansion were OK but ultimately this did nothing for me.

Gore Level: Not bad actually. The boyfriend’s fight with gravity ended up awesomely gory and the nail file to the peepers was decently done as well.

Nudity Level: Like I said, I think only 2 women out of 6 didn’t show their birthday suit areas. 

He’s behind me isn’t he?

Best Line: “You stabbed him right in the eye which went right through into his brain.”

Best Scene: Easily the death scene of the boyfriend. Not that it made any sense to the story but the outcome of his demise was great.

Worst Scene: The terrible attempt at a twist ending and reveal. Plus add to that how dumb Catherine was during this whole flick only worsened it.

Level of Hell: Despite it having Michael Gough, who’s an accomplished actor, especially in the Hammer/Horror arena, I don’t think the Great Lord of Darkness would be all too pleased with this crap.

Overall: A real bore of a horror flick and a total waste of anyone’s precious evil time. Sure it had Michael Gough but just imagine his Alfred from the Batman movies and that’s basically what he was. I can’t even remember if he said anything remotely sinister. I don’t even think he did anything sinister. It was terribly boring to watch. If I can say anything good about this garbage it would be that it’s filmed nicely and looks like a great horror film. It also has four nicely done death scenes and for that alone I will give it higher than a 3 score.

Score: 4 Randomly Exploding Parents (out of 10)