Enter the Devil

A coven of delusonal religious fanatics conducts brutal human sacrifices in a spooky old silver mine along the Mexican border. Among those parties interested in solving the growing number of missing persons reports and "accidental" deaths in the area are a female anthropology professor working on a book about obscure religions, a tough Texas deputy (co-writer David Cass), a nosy coroner, and a sheriff who wants to quell the negative local rumors until he can get himself re-elected. The culprits are mostly migrant workers who have perversely blended several old religions together into something new and sinister. We are never told any specifics regarding exactly what this cult of killers really believe, or exactly why they do the things they do, but ENTER THE DEVIL is an unusually creepy film nonetheless. Clad in hooded robes, the cultists walk along the rocky terrain in single file at night, carrying flaming torches and chanting in Latin. Their eerily lit cave hideout is a memorable locale for their barbaric rituals. This forgotten low-budget movie has a homemade, semi-documentary feel and an uncomfortably gritty realism, especially with so much time spent on getting to know a lot of ordinary people leading fairly ordinary lives. It is to the director's credit that the film never becomes truly boring in spite of its slow pacing and the down-to-earth nature of most of the character interaction. The fact that the story appears to be taking place in the real world, populated by plain simple folks, somehow makes the horrific parts all the more chilling. In a sick scene that was cut from U. S. prints, a woman is bound with barbed wire and burned to death until we see her body actually fall apart. It all happens fairly quickly and of course it isn't as sadistic and dragged-out as it would be in a movie made today, but it's still pretty disturbing. Modern viewers are liable to be put off by the lack of action and the rather unemotional ending, but this probably scared the bejeebers out of a lot of young people at drive-in showings in the '70s. It's no classic, but it's not bad either. A/k/a DISCIPLES OF DEATH.

This is actually not as bad and absurd as it may seem. The story makes sense, and sects are a phenomenon that humanity has suffered from through all ages, for good and for worse, adding constantly a touch of mystery and terror to history, as life would be too commonplace without it. Here the mysterious sect is a band out in the wilderness of the Texas deserts close to Mexico, and there are quite a few Mexicans involved. Things get serious as a professional lady anthropologist is connected in the case, they try to save her by sending her away in time, but it is too late, and she is too curious.

These films and stories of satanism always end in the same way, Dennis Wheatley wrote a number of novels about it, and they never depart from the same pattern. Neither does this film. It is intriguing, fascinating and partly exciting, but afterwards you just brush it off your clothes.

This film begins with a man named "Ozzie Perkins" (Happy Shahan) driving through an isolated part of Brewster County, Texas when his tire is shot by an unidentified man with a high-powered rifle which causes the car to veer off the road. Not realizing what exactly happened Ozzie gets out of the car and believing it was a simple blowout decides to walk along the deserted road in search of a gas station. It's during this time that he is offered a ride by a man in a pickup truck. What Ozzie doesn't count on is the fact that this man belongs to a Satanic cult and that he is about to be sacrificed that very night. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a solid, no-frills horror film which managed to keep the mystery going up until the very end. On the flip side, however, it could have used a bit more suspence or horror but that's just my opinion. In any case, while definitely not a great horror film by any means it was good enough for the time spent and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

The action of "Enter the Devil" takes place on a barren Texas wasteland dotted with dirty little towns and mercury mines.A red-robed Satanic cult is kidnapping unlucky victims and sacrificing them in the name of the Devil.Meanwhile a beautiful doctor Leslie Culver is researching the book about devilish cults."Enter the Devil" is a slow-moving and wonderfully dry horror movie set on the desert.There is a brilliantly conveyed aura of utter isolation that kept me intrigued.If you like strange horror/western hybrids give "Enter the Devil" a look.An obscurity that deserves to be seen and appreciated by countless fans of 70's horror.Enjoy your stay in Dry Lake.8 out of 10.

A woman doing research for her in-progress reference book on cults of the world ends up in a rural Southwestern U.S. dust-bowl where, ironically enough, an extremist offshoot of the Christian faith has been busy with their human-sacrificing rituals.

ENTER THE DEVIL, believe it or not, is an immeasurably more professional item than you will generally find within the ambit of early 70s drive-in horror. The Something Weird video release I viewed is sourced from a terribly worn print...it looks like snow flurries on the screen through nearly the entire movie. Still, that may well be the only way we can currently enjoy this suspenseful little rarity, which sort of plays like a mixture of RACE WITH THE DEVIL and THE LAST PICTURE SHOW.

The arid desert location filming brings a unique, lost and lonely atmosphere to the proceedings which are, at times, rather uneventful...still, this is a surprisingly well-made lower-berth picture which deserves a look(and, hopefully, a better looking print).

5.5/10