A 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.

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.

These kind of movies are usually dismissed as "Exorcist" rip-offs, which is not entirely accurate as they often lacked the budget and talent to "rip-off" a mega-budgeted Hollywood spectacle like "The Exorcist" even if they wanted to. What they really did was take advantage of all the notoriety and publicity surrounding the American film to make something that usually wasn't any good, but was often a lot more original than they have been given credit for. An old gypsy witch is accused of kidnapping a baby. After she dies in custody, her daughter arranges for her soul to possess the neglected young daughter of the local magistrate. Like Ravin in "The Exorcist" the possessed young girl floats in the air and starts speaking in foul-mouthed, adult voices, but she is also far more active, leading the sacrifice of the kidnapped baby to Satan, and luring the male lover of her governess to a park where she kills him,castrates him, and gives his genitalia to his poor girlfriend as a present! Her eventual exorcist meanwhile, like Father Damien Karras, is a local priest facing a crisis of conscience, but a far more ridiculous one--a woman he earlier jilted for the priesthood has become a prostitute.

I, in no way, want to imply that this is a good movie. Amando Ossorio has become somewhat of a cult director, but while he may handle atmospheric horror well in his "Blind Dead" series (or even the much-maligned "Night of the Sorcerers"), he is well out of his element here with this kind of more visceral horror. The script is (obviously)very stupid, the special effects are generally inept, and the atrocious English dubbing makes the whole thing completely risible. The movie should be commended though for its originality (relatively speaking)and its sheer audacity (the infanticide, the castration etc.). Most of the objectionable material, it should be said, is done off-screen (probably more due to budget limitations and censorship than good taste), but it unusual to broach such disturbing subject matter at all in a commercial film. The make-up on the little girl is also pretty good, and is aided greatly by the fact that the young actress looked pretty creepy (and a lot like the old witch) to begin with.

So does all this add up to a recommendation? Well . . . I guess if you like these "Exorcist" rip-offs like I do, you could do worse.

An old hag kidnaps a baby as an offering to Satan from her gypsy witch coven. The authorities, under pressure from their commissioner, bring her into custody, and during an interrogation she leaps from a window to her death. The commissioner is hence cursed by her gypsy "family", and soon his pretty daughter becomes host to the old hag's evil spirit. As one might expect, she starts talking like a trucker, slapping her mother, and taking to an overall Regan Macneil-ish nastiness(which, in this case, includes a castration wherein we find her skipping about gleefully with a bloody, floppy dong in her paw). Before long, she undergoes a physical transformation into something resembling a child with Rapid Aging Syndrome.

DEMON WITH CHILD/THE POSSESSED is generally noted as a kenspeckle Spanish Xerox of THE EXORCIST, though it does have a few small marks of intrinsic distinction. Despite the poor dubbing and intermediate production values, a macabre atmosphere is retiringly maintained which saves the film from buckling over completely...but barely.

In toto, this is a nominal treadmill chiller, but I can't say I found it a regrettable watch, or even that I wouldn't possibly watch it again.

4.5/10

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.