Los ritos sexuales del diablo

Extremely thin 'plot' of satanic rituals or some such mumbo-jumbo provides the hokey excuse to thread copious amounts of sex scenes together. Straight vanilla sex, masturbation, lesbianism, S&M, bestiality, incest, and a few other sexual proliferation's all get their time in the spotlight here. The problem is the storyline is so dull that the rampant sexuality gets pretty tedious after awhile. Who knew that a film with an intimate goat/ girl encounter could be so damn boring? Well now I do.

Eye Candy: Venessa Hidalgo shows all; Helga Line provides T&A (both on display quite frequently); women viewers get the occasional penis.

My Grade: D+

Region 1 DVD Extras: Trailers for "Pick Up", "Legend of Eight Samurai", "Don't Answer the Phone", "Prime Evil", & "Sister Street Fighter" (also the same DVD holds a second feature movie "Evil Eye")

Not a pretty film, this rather vigorous satanic sex film is filmed on location in England with a cast of largely unknown Spanish and English 'actors'. Actually the fact that this is such a mixed cast and of such mixed age does add a little something to what is otherwise not a lot. The leading coven lady was coming up 50 when she made this and that doesn't stop her stripping for sex at regular intervals. Similarly the men, they don't care if they might be fat and hairy. So plot wise this is a non starter but as a representation of a small countryside satanic group ready and willing to excite their goat into some mixed action, this is probably more realistic than many. Basically this looks like lusty amateurs giving it their sleazy all.

Known in the UK as Black Candles, the original Spanish title Los Ritos Sexuales del Diablo sums it up a lot better. The characters in this 1981 film from Jose Ramon Larraz spend most of the time naked and jumping on one another. Saucy German actress Helga Line, pushing 50 when the film was made, leads the way with an erotic, knicker-shedding performance as a middle-class woman at the centre of a Satanic cult. Drawing heavily on Rosemary's Baby and set in England, this is a daft piece of soft core in which the devil's work is done largely by the genitalia.

What Black Candles lacks in plot and character development, it makes up for in sleaze and overt sexuality. I can't think of the last time I saw a semi-mainstream film this steamy and overloaded with sex scenes and nudity. Most of the time, it's riding a fine line between softcore and hardcore.

Since all the performances have been dubbed, it's hard to judge many of the performances or the dialogue. The story seems to be a take off on Rosemary's Baby with a paranoid woman thinking she's being roped into a Satantic cult for some nefarious reason. These reasons are never made clear and, besides one nasty scene where a man is stabbed by a sword through his rectum, it's light on horror.

I know and like Vampyres, another movie directed by José Ramón Larraz in 1974. That one mixes softporn scenes with some bloodthirsty female vampires. Los ritos sexuales del diablo aka Black Candles mixes some satanic witchcult with, well, softporn. So all in all I dare to say that both movies by Mr. Larraz are only of any interest to you if you like your movies sometimes sleazy and dirty, in that oldschool softporn way. The by other viewers mentioned "goat act" is so obviously fake, it's rather funny than shocking. Anyway, entertained I was. Recommended if names like Jess Franco or Russ Meyer don't let you run away screaming in terror and pain ;)