Legacy of Satan

A New York couple are lured to a masked party, held at the large house of an evil occultist who has set his sights on the wife. Very low budget, bad acting and a plot that could be written on a postage stamp this ticks the boxes for viewers seeking 1970's grindhouse trash. One of the movie's strongest points is the ever present, eerie synth score. This combines well with several surreal, nightmare like sequences. Some of the make up is OK too. Two things that I didn't like are - 1 - no nudity, which was unusuall for black magic films from this decade, and 2 - despite the title I never once heard the name "Satan" get a mention, instead some Lord Rakeesh, or something, is the demon to which the cult is dedicated. A name that I am not familiar with. Yes, this is trashy but it is still far more enjoyable that most of the horror movies being churned out in the 21st Century.

Legacy Of Satan - 1974 ( This Film Rates an F ) Set in New York City in the 1970's. A group of satanic cult members have chosen a woman (Maya) to be their new queen. They enjoy bloodletting and consuming blood from those willing and unwilling alike. They engage in rituals to capture Maya and she starts to have bloody and erotic dreams. She feels "different" but is unable to explain how. The husband (George) tries to understand these changes but is bewildered and frustrated by her erratic behaviors. The couple are invited to a costume party by a friend (arranged by Dr. Muldavo - a friend of a friend) where transportation and the costumes are supplied by the host. Once at this party they are escorted to a room to change into the respective costumes. At 40:30 Maya and George drink wine which immediately entrances them into what looks like a psychedelic experience. It was completely laughable. She makes her way downstairs where everyone is gathered and waiting for her. Every single one of them giddy from the blood drinking and chanting Maya's name. Dr. Muldavo courts the future queen even further. Maya soon learns how deep this all goes but remains helpless and powerless until George comes to the rescue with the help of one jealous satanists. He wields a lighted sword. Dr. Muldavo is injured as a result and requires large amounts of blood to survive. George and Maya try to escape but it's all for naught and Maya is already the queen, a wicked queen who does not take no for an answer. The 70's synth soundtrack was a bit too loud and repetitive and some of the transitions from scene to scene were a bit cut and rough. The gore is extremely minimal and there was no effort to show any. The acting is borderline but some of the stunts reminded me of a high school play. But even decent acting and good gore effects could not save this horrid film. Even at 70 minutes Legacy of Satan is still too long.

There's nothing really enjoyable about this film. The biggest problem is Lisa Christian, its lead actress. She can't act, at all, and drains the life out of almost every scene she is in, which is most of the movie. On multiple occasions she repeats, in near monotone, the exact same line of dialog she said minutes before. Perhaps that was caused by multiple takes and film editing that wasn't even trying to keep track. (Except the other actors' dialog doesn't seem like it repeats, at least as far as I noticed.) Her character is just banal, extremely selfish and, at times, wildly inconsistent. Her poor husband. In many ways, this was a character study of someone who was pathetically narcissistic. She imagines she's everyone's favorite ice cream flavor but is just spoiled milk. She is chosen to become consort to an equally insignificant but egotistical occultist who worships a supernatural entity they call Rakeesh. Yes, the satanists in this movie don't worship Satan but someone named after Lord Shiva in Hinduism, which is not only not politically correct but just plain ignorant. If you're going to change the name, at least make the source of ultimate evil Krog or something else even slightly intimidating. I don't want to imagine they all worship the guy who wipes up spilled Slurpees at 7-11. Of course, many Satanists use their rites as an excuse to play sex games,...but not this pathetic batch. If you've seen the photos here on IMDB, you've seen the most skin you will see in the entire film. It's purely PG-13 stuff. This was before PG-13, so it's closer to PG than R. The film is kind of short, but I can't tell if that was because it was originally going to feature 20 minutes of nudity (or porn, to go by the rumor) that got cut / never was filmed or just because the mobsters who were funding it said enough is enough. Honestly, though, only losing the lead actors and starting over from scratch could have saved this movie.

Terrible EVERYTHING! Cinematography, Direction, Sound Engineering, Script, Set Design, Lighting, and Acting; terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, and terrible.

It looks and feels like some apartment building somewhere, full of young people, gathered up all of the neighbors, and decided to make a movie.

It is difficult to understand what the point of this film even is! Skip this one over EVERY TIME you have the opportunity to do so!

Seriously! Pull it up on whatever streaming channel has it available just to say to yourself, "nope," and then move on to something else! This film deserves us all doing just that from time to time!

Very odd film.

Enjoyable. Trippy. Leisurely (even at 69 minutes) but not even slightly scary.

There's something engaging about Maya that I can't quite put my finger on; Perhaps it's the magical influence hanging over her. Perhaps it's her potential to take the army of darkness onwards into the future. Or perhaps it's her amazing bone structure and resemblance to Annette Haven in 'V The Hot One' which I found under my Dad's bed when I was a kid and who formed the basis for many of my teenage fantasies...