Sklavin des Satans (1976)

Sklavin des Satans: Directed by Norman J. Warren. With Michael Gough, Martin Potter, Candace Glendenning, Barbara Kellerman. A woman traveling with her parents to her uncle’s house crash near his house. Her parents die but she survives. She stays with her uncle, but it becomes clear that he and his son are planning something sinister for her.

“The works of Norman J Warren and David McGillivray can be likened to the little girl with the little curl – when theyu0026#39;re good (FRIGHTMARE, TERROR) theyu0026#39;re very very good, and when theyu0026#39;re bad, theyu0026#39;re horrid. SATANu0026#39;S SLAVE completely lacks the edgy, tense, paranoid atmosphere of foreboding doom that marked Warrenu0026#39;s later work (including the unfairly maligned INSEMINOID) and the gleeful nastiness that made McGillivrayu0026#39;s collaborations with Pete Walker memorable, and the result is a tedious experience indeed, with a sub-standard Michael Gough performance, several sequences that make little sense (though the version I saw was probably hacked to pieces by the sensitive souls at the BBC – good of them to leave the eyeball gouging intact though!) and a central premise that just seems corny to our modern sensibilities. The opening credits should give you your first warning that somethingu0026#39;s amiss, because no fewer than FIVE directors of photography are credited, which is probably why the overall look of the film is so muddled – for every sequence that musters a degree of low-budget atmosphere, there are several that have the over-lit, barrel-scraping feel of a cheap public information film. Warren seemed remarkably unconcerned about coaxing decent performances from the cast at this stage, and the number of alternate versions suggests he wasnu0026#39;t too bothered about creating a definitive directoru0026#39;s cut either. In all, a sad disappointment and a missed opportunity – I much prefer Warren as an unsubtle misanthropist to his mantle here as a bargain basement Roman Polanski.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOne other thing – the ident at the beginning for the filmu0026#39;s distributors Brent Walker is pretty good, with a great synthesizer fanfare, like the old Cannon movies ident from the eighties, only cheap-looking. Catch it if you can!”