"Satan's Children" follows teenager Bobby, who is tormented by his abusive stepsister and stepfather. When Bobby runs away, he falls victim to a group of brutish men who gang rape him and leave him in a ditch for dead. If things couldn't get worse, he is taken in by a cult of Manson family-esque Satanists.
This no-budget schlock-fest is one of the weirder Satanic-themed horror films of the '70s, inept in more ways than one can count, but so bizarre that it almost demands to be seen. Despite its budgetary limitations, the themes and content here are pretty cruel, and the plot setup has been (understandably) questioned for the confounding moral stance it does (or doesn't) take.
Aesthetically, the film's cinematography is pedestrian at best, often looking like a cheaply-made Afterschool Special from hell, and boasts inane performances from a young cast of non-actors. The film contains a trove of flimsy dialogue and disconnected editing choices that lend it a somewhat surreal quality, but none of this seems to be intentional in the slightest. Even still, despite its weaknesses, "Satan's Children" offers enough visual (and thematic) strangeness--and some occasionally haunting imagery--to warrant a viewing from fans of Z-grade grindhouse horror. 6/10.
