Demon Rage

The movie is not a classic horror film by any means. I saw it when I was about 11 or 12 years old and one part that really did scare me is when the main character played by Lana Wood (yes that is Natalie Wood's sister) is running on the beach at night from this creepy looking guy with a weird outfit and even weirder looking mask. She constantly dreams about him and he eventually catches up to her and rips off her clothes and has his way with her. It's been several years since I saw it.

A lonely and neglected housewife (Lana Wood) living in a deserted house on the beach takes a lover. Unfortunately, that lover turns out to be Satan! Her husband and teenage daughter are naturally upset by this turn of events and enlist a family friend (Britt Ekland) who is a spiritual medium and the latter's obnoxious husband to help them out, with disastrous results for everyone involved.

This movie kind of resembles both the mainstream film "The Entity" and the X-rated classic "Through the Looking Glass", but it is not as good as either. It is surprisingly low-budget and obscure movie considering that it features two former Bond girls--Lana "Plenty O'Toole" Wood and Britt "Holly Goodnight" Ekland. (okay, not two of the most talented former Bond girls, but still--). A cadaverous John Carradine also makes an appearance (but then he showed up pretty much every time he sensed the distant whir of a film camera). Ekland, very uncharacteristically, keeps her clothes on for the whole movie, but the busty Woods more than makes up for this as she repeatedly scromps naked with the horny demon, moaning ecstatically. The film is not bad, at least before the completely confounding ending, but there are few too many supposedly meaningful shots of the waves crashing onto the beach.

Not a good film perhaps, but not deserving of its current obscurity either.

I saw this at a drive-in (shock!), but it was called "Fury of the Succubus". Its only real redeeming value, to me, is nostalgic: it's among the last of the drive-in second features ever put into wide release. From the late 40s, until they were effectively replaced by the direct to video market in the early 80s, countless of these gems at once horrified and amused the teenage clientèle after the families had pulled out of the lot to get the kiddies to bed. This was also the perfect example of the movies you stayed to NOT watch when you were there on a date. If not for "films" like this, a lot of us guys would have graduated high school as virgins!

It's funny how they just gloss over how verbally abusive and aggressive the main character's husband is, as though his abusiveness and neglect aren't what's negatively affecting the relationship. This is a couple that I don't want things to work out for because it's established early on that he "gets" that way whenever he's focused on his work, meaning he'll keep ignoring her, getting angry when she gently tries to get his attention, and calling her curse words. THEN he gets angry when she rightfully separates herself and wants to focus on painting, slamming what she's working on to the floor. He also rejects her sexual advances, but when he comes home and hears her in the throes of passion "alone," he gets jealous. Like, wow, he can be neglectful, abusive, but she'd better not dare respond to it, even passively. He's AWFUL! But the movie treats it like SHE'S the problem! I just kept thinking it's not good for her daughter to grow up seeing that her mother endured that treatment as normal because it often does affect a child's adult choices.

Also, they start the story out already in the house, focusing on the nonsensical family drama and just making vague references to the house being evil or whatever. It's an awful setup. I think they were more focused on getting the wife's kit off and having her in bed, fake moaning with a distressed look on her face. The other characters are used weirdly, with the husband of the main character's best friend coming across as a creep, as he keeps making lustful comments about the main character and burying the attractiveness of his own pretty wife right to her face. The daughter is used in what should be a significant way, but the execution is so poor that she still comes across as a loose end.

Conclusion: Poorly written and paced, bland, unlikable characters, plays like a TV movie with nudity; 1 star.

S/N: Also, the misogynistic comments about her breasts in these reviews are far worse than the movie!

Anyone who had not seen this film, but had heard about its various titles, may expect something interesting and worthwhile. The reality is that this is a turgid, slow moving, load of nonsense! First of all, the soundtrack is quite abysmal, and the background sounds tend to drown out the dialogue, which is no great shakes anyway. The editing is quite appalling, and the film lurches from scene to scene without any great pattern to it. The ending is quite ludicrous, although after sitting through 90 minutes of dross, it is a welcome relief to the viewer. In all in, a sad effort which only merits two points courtesy of the lead, Lana Wood!!