Demon Witch Child

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.

An acceptable Exorcist rip-off , though it contains some cheesy special effects and mediocre direction . La Endemoniada or Demon witch child or The possessed (1975) contains chills , thrills , disgusting Satanism and bizarre shots of possession . An old witch (Tota alba) seeks revenge through the daughter (Marián Salgado) of the commissioner who had her thrown in prison . Soon the little girl's head is spinning around, and an old priest (Julian Mateos) is called in to perform an exorcism. As the priest attempts to free from possesion with sinister visions resulting in fateful consecuences . As the young girl is really possessed by a malevolant spirit until a surprising and astonishing final . Good and evil battle for possession of the innocent! .If you were TERRIFIED by "The Exorcist"...HORRIFIED by "Beyond the Door"...Now see the GREATEST SHOCKER of them all!!!

This is pretty entertaining witchery stuff about young girl turns possessed by a woman from a witches cult , while seeks vendetta . This is the Spanish answer to American horror hit , The Exorcist by William Friedkin . Atmospheric horror movie contains terrifying scenes when appears witchery , necromancy and possssion scenes and taking place brutal killings , terror, and confusion around her family and the townfolks . Although there are some lousily made scenes , including primitive special effects . It's a slight fun with passable make-up , naive FX , acceptable set decoration and functional art direction . The fable is sometimes silly and laughable , though a few effects and intriguing set pieces are professionally made . Some illogical parts in the argument are more than compensated for the excitement provided by the possession images , though sometimes are a little bit cheesy . While not a hit during its original run, the film became successful when reissued nearly 45 years later . Main and support cast are decent . Julian Mateos plays the priest trying to unravel the mystery suffering from the effects. While the starring child was acceptabily incarnated by Marián Salgado , she was hired by Amando de Ossorio due to she dubbed Linda Blair in the Spanish version of El Exorcist . And other secondary actors giving brief but acceptable performances such as Fernando Sancho as Police Inspector , Angel del Pozo as the father ,Roberto Camardiel as Managing Editor, Fernando Hilbeck as doctor who prescribes strong treatment , Lone Fleming , and , of course , Tota Alba as the creepy witch . In the film appears known Spanishtrash actresses as Kali Hansa as Gypsy Witch , María Kosty as Esther , Julia Saly nicknamed La Pocha , Montserrat Prous as a Nurse and Lone Fleming as Anne Crawford . All of them starred several exploitation films during the 60s and 70s . The Exorcist by William Friedkin spawned countless imitations , and clones all around the world , as in Spain was made four at the same time : this ¨Endemoniada¨ 1974 by Amando de Ossorio with Julián Mateos , ¨The Spiritist¨ 1975 with Vicente Parra, Maria Salerno and ¨Exorcismo¨ by Juan Bosch with Grace Mills , Paul Naschy or Jacinto Molina and ¨El Juego Del Diablo¨ 1975 with Imma de Santis by Jorge Darnell .

The motion picture was professional though regularly directed by Amando De Ossorio . Amando began in films as a writer and assistant director and continued his career by making short films and industrial documentaries . He was one of the main directors of the Spanish horror boom in the 70s, specially for his quartet of films about the living dead Templars which started with his first great success and immensely popular ¨Tombs of the Blind dead¨ which to be continued by a trilogy : ¨Return of evil dead¨ , ¨Ship of Zombies or Blind dead 2¨ and ¨Blind dead 3 or The night of the sea gulls¨ . Amando owns his own studio and created and/or designed many of the simple special effects sequences you see in any of his many imaginative undertakings . Amando who passed away in 2001 was a good craftsman who realized a lot of amusing as well as entertaining films . He displayed a varied career and specialized on all kind of genres as Western in "Rebels in Canada" and "Grave of the Gunfighter" , Monster movie as ¨Serpent of sea¨ and , of course, Terror as ¨Malenka¨ , The possessed¨ and ¨night of witches¨ . Ossorio also studied painting and photography , moreover, he also made his living as a painter of creepy images of the Knights Templar in his later years.

Amando de Ossorio will probably always be my Spanish horror-hero because he made the utterly amazing "Blind Dead"-quadrology and also the even more amazing (but sadly obscure) "Lorelei's Grasp". His horror films, even the less good ones, are hugely atmospheric and often manage to come across as genuinely creepy even though the subject matter is far-fetched and implausible. This theory works for "Demon Witch Child", too. The film itself isn't impressive and certainly not very original. A young girl possessed by satanic forces that cause her to speak foreign languages and make her body to float in thin air? Now, where have we seen that before? Yes, this basically is the umpteenth European imitation of William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" but, please, don't allow this to spoil the fun. It's an adorably weird exploitation effort, with quite a collection of deranged characters and inexplicably compelling sub plots. In a quiet little community, a gypsy woman is suspected of kidnapping infants and commits suicide by jumping out of the police station's (closed) window. She avenges herself by using her witchcraft powers to possession over the eminent politician's nine-year-old daughter. In this younger body, the old witch can carelessly continue sacrificing newborn children to Satan… Her concerned father and nanny call in the help of a young priest, but he's in the middle of being stalked by a girl who can't accept that he chose God over her. This last part describes a completely irrelevant but entertaining sub plot, by the way. Believe it or not, but the scariest thing about this movie is the young actress who plays Susan! And not even during the sequences where the gypsy witch possesses her soul! No offense to her, but Marián Salgado looks almost naturally uncanny and definitely NOT like an innocent schoolgirl! The elderly actress who plays the actual witch looks pretty creepy too, but at least she was supposed to have this effect. Sadly enough, "Demon Witch Child" disappoints in the gore department. There's no exploitative bloodshed and Amando de Ossorio only hits at gruesome events, like a castration and a brutal baby killing. Perhaps the lack of budget is to blame, but that sure didn't stop our director when he made the "Blind Dead" movies. The possession-effects are nice and cheesy and the eerie music is very efficient. Personally, I have a weakness for shameless rip-offs (I usually enjoy them even more than the real thing) but most horror fans will likely enjoy this film, as long as they're not too demanding.

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.

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