La hija de Satanás

I have wanted to see this movie ever since first seeing the wonderful poster artwork, in the eighties, featuring the red winged devil his bloodied and clawed arms around a naked girl. Well, now I have and almost wish it could have remained an unattained desire, still full of great promise. But, no, despite there being many moments of real style, beautiful, naked ladies, a wonderful setting, complete with great cloister areas, not to mention that super poster artwork, this still manages not to work. There is plenty of luscious flesh but too much soft core self stroking and ponderous, nay plodding periods of far too much incomprehensible dialogue. We care little for anybody and with so little regard paid to keeping even the simplest of story lines on track, the only word for this is inept.

I don't quite know what to make of "Satan's Baby Doll", to be honest. As the title suggests, it's another cheap, wicked-minded and umpteenth excuse for Italian producers to come up with sleaze and satanic nonsense – and it is – but on the other hand it's a surprisingly stylish and well-made film. Yes, really! Well, talking in terms of early 80's exploitation standards and in comparison with the other titles on director Mario Bianchi's repertoire, that is. It even has a plot that is slightly above average, competent acting performances (I'm not kidding!) and genuine young beauty that sadly only ever appeared in this one film. Oh Jacqueline Dupré, what an angel you are. The sinister events all take place inside the walls of an ancient family castle atop a hillside. This location is always filmed from underneath in the valley, just to make really sure the viewer knows we're dealing with a very isolated setting here. The lady of the house just died, but she was involved with black magic rites and Satanism, so her malignant spirit attempts to return from the afterlife. She finds the perfect host inside the ravishing body of her young daughter Myra and commands her to kill all the remaining dirt bags in the castle. So what we have here, basically, is an Italian variation on "The Exorcist" (another one), but with a Gothic setting and buckets full of gratuitous nudity. Also living in the castle is a masturbating nun, a Peeping Tom in a wheelchair, a sleazy lawyer, a crazy voodoo-obsessed servant and the sickly jealous and tyrant patriarch. There are quite a lot of senseless dialogs and boring parts you unfortunately have to struggle yourself through, but the death scenes are fairly imaginative and Dupré beauty & sex-appeal brightens up the screen with every appearance she makes. The other female leads are filled in by Mariangela Giordano (yes, THE woman whose nipple gets bitten off by her creep son in "Burial Ground") as the household nun and by adult movie starlet Marina Hedman as the undead but still very horny Maria. This is bizarre early 80's exploitation, to say the least , but it's worth seeing if only for the imaginative choreography, the uncanny set pieces, the ominous musical guidance (courtesy of Nico Catanese) and the naked body of Jacqueline Dupré. Shallow? You bet!

Some sources (including the afore-mentioned "Stracult") consider this to be a superior film to MALABIMBA – THE MALICIOUS WHORE (1979), of which this is a revamp (and therefore sufficiently different not to qualify as a direct remake) but I certainly disagree. To begin with, there is only a fair amount of nudity but little sex in itself and none of the hardcore variety; in fact, it's rather heavier on horror content compared to the original, even going so far as to include a completely irrelevant (if reasonably eerie) marauding mummy scene!

On the whole, SATAN'S BABY DOLL is a much more somber film and, consequently, a good deal less entertaining than MALABIMBA itself (which, at least, had rampant nudity and campiness to compensate for its other deficiencies). Conversely, the later film is a more compact affair with not only less characters (7 in all) but a much shorter running time at only 74 minutes. Another good score is provided and I thought Mariangela Giordano (who, at 45, certainly looks great in the nude) was better here than she was in MALABIMBA. The lead, Jacqueline Dupre', is quite lovely as well (though I personally preferred Laennec) and, like her predecessor, this was her only movie to date.

Unfortunately, the cons greatly outnumber the pros in this case: the baffling butler characterization (and the resulting hideously hammy performance) is a definite eyesore, as is the sloppy editing (especially during the scene where the paraplegic uncle imagines Giordano writhing passionately in bed). Spaghetti Western regular Aldo Sambrell is curious casting for the unsympathetic vengeful head of the family and his sluttish wife (whose spirit possesses the teenage lead) is not all that attractive either (which did not prevent her from getting it on with the novice while still alive)!

When everything is said and done, I don't think SATAN'S BABY DOLL merited a DVD release of its own and would have been better served as a double-feature with MALABIMBA...not least because such a move would have decreased their collective purchase price and saved shelf space to prospective buyers! Curiously enough, there's no option to watch either film without English subtitles and I had to manually remove them during playback!

Satan's Baby Doll (1982)

** (out of 4)

Remake of Malabimba, The Malicious Whore follows the same storyline pretty much and also cuts out the hardcore sex scenes. This time out it's Jacqueline Dupre playing the young girl who is being possessed and Mariangela Giordano reprises her role as the nun. This is a pretty straight forward remake so if you've seen the original movie then you're not going to have any twists or turns that you don't see coming. It's hard to say which movie is better as both have good and bad things going for them. I think this one works nicely without the hardcore scenes but at the same time this film here isn't nearly as sexy or erotic as the original. This film is also pretty straight forward and doesn't contain as many campy moments, which is the main reason I'd rewatch the original over this one. This one here does have some great cinematography and some nice eye candy in the form of the beautiful naked women but I wouldn't really call this film necessary.

La bimba di Satana/Satan's Babydoll is a strange early 80s film that does not really ever make much sense, but is marvellously weird and pleasantly gothic, albeit with a string of extended sex scenes which may or may not try the patience of viewers. Some of the highlights are Isidro's very, very long spellcasting (and yelling/gurning) scenes, and when Ignazio spies on the sleeping Sol (and imagines all kinds of self-induced hijinks on her part). The latter is notable in that it is essentially the same scene repeated countless times, and so it is (especially with regard to the repeated close-ups of Ignazio's startled boat race) pretty much the very first media gif! However, it is fair to say that these scenes can equally also try the patience of saints due to their endlessness. However, the film has possessions, a spooky castle, a pretty cool mummy and so is a horror curio, if nothing else.