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The Touch of Satan

  • 1971
  • PG
  • 1h 30m
IMDb RATING
2.4/10
3.2K
YOUR RATING
The Touch of Satan (1971)
A young man meets a farm girl who is actually a witch.
Play trailer1:57
1 Video
33 Photos
Horror

A young man finds himself in a strange town with strange things going on. Two sisters, possessed, create a Jekyll-Hyde atmosphere where bizarre killings occur. Our hero fall in love an enter... Read allA young man finds himself in a strange town with strange things going on. Two sisters, possessed, create a Jekyll-Hyde atmosphere where bizarre killings occur. Our hero fall in love an enters a new world of mind-shattering experiences.A young man finds himself in a strange town with strange things going on. Two sisters, possessed, create a Jekyll-Hyde atmosphere where bizarre killings occur. Our hero fall in love an enters a new world of mind-shattering experiences.

  • Director
    • Don Henderson
  • Writer
    • James E. McLarty
  • Stars
    • Michael Berry
    • Emby Mellay
    • Lee Amber
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    2.4/10
    3.2K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Don Henderson
    • Writer
      • James E. McLarty
    • Stars
      • Michael Berry
      • Emby Mellay
      • Lee Amber
    • 60User reviews
    • 12Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    Trailer
    Trailer 1:57
    Trailer

    Photos33

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    Top cast13

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    Michael Berry
    • Jodie Lee Thompson
    Emby Mellay
    Emby Mellay
    • Melissa Strickland
    Lee Amber
    • Luther Strickland
    Yvonne Winslow
    • Molly Strickland
    Jeanne Gerson
    • Lucinda Strickland
    Robert Easton
    Robert Easton
    • Mr. Keitel
    Lew Horn
    Lew Horn
    • Deputy John Mason
    Sharon Crabtree
    • Young Lucinda
    John J. Fox
    • Attendant
    Hal K. Dawson
    • Mr. Gentry
    Frank Jansen
    Frank Jansen
    • Frank Larsen
    Ellen Bailey
    • Sarah Strickland
    Don Henderson
    • David Strickland
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Don Henderson
    • Writer
      • James E. McLarty
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews60

    2.43.2K
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    Featured reviews

    5FieCrier

    much better than I expected, though no classic of the genre

    I found this far more watchable than most others seem to have.

    A farmer inspects a noise in his barn, which we can see came from a doll. He encounters a killer with a pitchfork. The scene following seems to have a family commenting on the death, suggesting the guy turned out OK. However, it turns out they were talking about something else, as the killer stumbles in - and the family is committed to hiding the crime.

    A young man traveling to California stops in the town, and meets a young woman by her family's pond. They take a liking to each other, and she invites him to stay. Unfortunately, they're the family from the opening scene.

    She claims to be a witch, and he's skeptical. She claims also to be possessed by the devil, but this seems to refer more to ownership than the devil actually being inside her controlling her actions.

    The movie is slow, but has a nice 70s flavor, and a bucolic farm setting. For the gorehounds, there's the opening pitchfork scene (not terribly gory), and a much bloodier kill with a hook used for handling hay bales. There's a flashback to 100+ years ago of the punishment of a witch. The ending is perfect.
    1Gafke

    Dreadful & Dull

    A young man named Jody drives across country and decides to stop and have lunch in a small town where, he's been told, a "chromichidal maniac" is on the loose. He meets a young pretty girl named Melissa, falls instantly love and follows her home for dinner. Dinner turns into a weekend and we slowly (very slowly) learn that Melissa is no ordinary seventeen year old girl. She's a 120 year old witch who sold her soul to Satan, and the incredibly wrinkled woman she claims is her great grandmother is actually her little sister...and a "chromichidal maniac" to boot. Seems Melissa sold her soul to save the weird old chick from being burned at the stake by an angry mob 120 years earlier. Now, it seems, nothing can save Melissa from the curse...except perhaps for Jody's love. Will he sell his own soul to save her? Who cares?

    This 70s effort is filled with bad acting, a terrible script and a story that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The flashbacks to the 1850s still manage to look like the 1970s and the angry mob is more of a slightly irritated gathering. Everyone looks stoned and delivers their lines in half hearted monotones, eyes glazed and faces expressionless. And Jody has got to be the stupidest kid yet to appear on screen. He hangs around even though he's clearly not wanted and continues to hang around even after things begin to get menacing. Not even the sight of Gramma-Sister eviscerating a cop with a scythe can scare him away for long. No, he's too much in love with Melissa, a drab farmgirl with minimal beauty whose claims of Witchy-ness cannot penetrate Jody's thick skull and sound any sort of alarm bells. And who the hell are those people that Melissa is living with? They're not her parents, but they're in on the Dreadful Truth, so what gives? This is just one of the many glaring plot holes that litter this lackluster film. Not even the horrific murders and the fiery finale could keep me from nodding off. This movie just kind of plods along like a cinematic sedative until it finally peters out and ends with no fanfare whatsoever.

    Guaranteed to cure insomnia.
    3gavin6942

    1970s Trash With Just a Hint of Possibility

    The plot says, "A man meets a farmgirl who is actually a witch." I think the story is a bit more complicated than that, but sure...

    The film has flaws. Oh, yes, it sure does. Poor video quality (perhaps fixable) makes the picture appear even more cheap than it probably was. The plot drags at times, many times, and the villain relies on some rather poor makeup (though this would be less bothersome if she was shown less). Actually, the plot dragging is the worst part. Cut ten minutes off this to improve the pace and the whole movie would instantly be improved.

    Most people have probably seen this film on "Mystery Science Theater"... (actually, most people have not seen the film at all). Do not let this fool you. While the movie is bad, it is not quite the terrible film IMDb makes it out to be. I see worse films on a regular basis that somehow get better rankings. So, although this film is bad, its being on the Bottom 100 is in error -- with a few touch-ups, edits, etc. this film has the potential to be something more. Still something average, and not actually good, but far from the worst...
    clowns_n_cookies

    Bless Tom, Mike, and Servo...

    Thanks to the good, good people of Mystery Science Theater 3000, I have been subjected to a wide variety of tremendously bad movies. Some are worse than others, and some are so horrible that writing commentary on them is almost pointless. (Almost as pointless as why anyone would make the movie in the first place, i.e. 'Santa Conquers the Martians')

    But this delightful little film is definitely worth the commentary. Definitely.

    The story begins as we're cruising around in a hot, brown maverick with Jodie Thompson: the ill-fated loser/hero of our movie. He winds up at a walnut ranch on his road trip where he meets the frumpy Melissa Strickland, a gal with more than a couple of demons in her closet. Melissa talks Jodie into hangin' around for a couple of days, just enough time to get a first taste of what family life is like at the Strickland residence. Grandma mutilates a few people, Jodie and Melissa do it near her "Dad's" pond, and a couple of souls are sold to Satan. Fin.

    The plot itself isn't horrible... but everything else about the movie is. Horrid looking actors, horrid directing and film editing, and let's not forget the horrid dialogue. ("This is where the fish lives" will forever remain one of the funniest, stupidest comments ever said in a film.) In other words, this is a horror film- as in horrific every which way you slice it.

    But the film isn't all that unbearable to watch, especially when you have a couple of sarcastic robots at hand. The less seriously you take the movie, the more fun you'll have. And the more fun you have, the easier it will be to make it through the entire movie.

    Get's a 2.4 out of 10!
    divaclv

    A touch of ridiculousness

    How is this film stupid? Let us count the ways:

    1) It centers around the two most lackadaisical characters to ever be the subject of a film. Jody and Melissa spend half the movie sitting in uncomfortable silence, and the other half trading dialogue in accents that never reach any level of emotion, not even when Melissa's loony "grandmother" Lucinda starts skewering people with farm implements.

    2) Melissa and Lucinda live out in the middle of nowhere, on what Jody insists on calling a "walnut ranch." Note to screenwriter: ranches usually raise livestock. Walnuts are more likely to be found in an orchard.

    3) Besides Melissa and Lucinda, the ranch is also home to Luther and Molly. We assume they're Melissa's parents, until circumstances prove that impossible. Who they really are is aparently none of our business.

    4) Melissa insists she's possessed by the devil. Jody refuses to believe her. This will persist, with no variation, for most of the film.

    5) In a flashback, we learn Melissa and Lucinda are really sisters, and that Lucinda was nearly burned at the stake for witchcraft by an angry mob (more on them later) until Melissa sold her soul to Satan to save her. This scene, we later learn, takes place sometime in the 19th century. Blaming witches for everything had pretty much gone out of vogue by that time, although blaming minorities was pretty popular, if I remember my history.

    6) Satan apparently is inconsistant in his deals. Melissa is allowed to remain young, while Lucinda ages. Then again, Lucinda in her youth looked something like Frida Khalo, so she didn't miss much.

    7) About that angry mob--okay, angry isn't the best word for them, since they have about the energy and enthusiasm of a checkout line. How are we supposed to feel about them? They arrive with torches to burn Lucinda for witchcraft, but then it seems Lucinda really is guilty of the crime. It's one thing to portray Christians as narrow-minded, superstitious, and hypocritical, but what happens when they're actually right?

    8) During the burning, the mob breaks out into "Amazing Grace." Aparently they only know one verse to the song, since they repeat it endlessly.

    9) To save Melissa from the Devil, Jody must sleep with her. We're not sure why this is.

    10) Once freed from the clutches of evil, Melissa begins showing her age, which is around a hundred and twenty. Most films would allow Melissa to die, so that her tormented soul may finally be at rest, but nooo--Jody has to sell his soul to the Devil to get her back. This might be a harrowing statement on the powers of darkness, until I recall that having people like Jody and Melissa in the camp isn't exactly an asset for the forces of Hell.

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    Related interests

    Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby (1968)
    Horror

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Satan's "I am a friend and companion of the night . . . " speech is taken from H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Horror At Red Hook."
    • Goofs
      During the finale of the movie when Jodie walks up to Melissa at the pond there is a long shot that shows him standing directly in front of her. In the reverse shot he is shown standing several feet from her.
    • Quotes

      [at the pond]

      Melissa: This is where the fish lives.

    • Crazy credits
      In the version of this film that appeared on Mystery Science Theater 3000 there is a brief negative flaw in the closing credits. The cast begins to scroll up when suddenly the bottom of the credits drop and reappear.
    • Alternate versions
      The film was edited down for its appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1998. Among the scenes edited were a conversation between Melissa and Lucinda, more graphic images of Lucinda killing the deputy, a conversation between Luther and Molly Strickland about Melissa and Jodie's relationship, and a scene where Melissa and Lucinda's father denounces them after the villagers attack.
    • Connections
      Featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Touch of Satan (1998)

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • August 23, 1971 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Night of the Demon
    • Filming locations
      • Santa Ynez, California, USA
    • Production company
      • Stupendous Talking Pictures International
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 30m(90 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.66 : 1

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