To the Devil a Daughter (1976)

Director: Peter Sykes

Writers: Christopher Wicking, John Peacock, Gerald Vaughan-Hughes, Dennis Wheatley

Composer: Paul Glass

Starring: Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee, Honor Blackman, Denholm Elliott, Michael Goodliffe, Natassja Kinski, Eva Maria Meineke, Anthony Valentine, Derek Francis, Izabella Telezynska, Constantine Gregory

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Warning! This Motion Picture Contains The Most Shocking Scenes This Side Of Hell!

Plot: An American occult novelist battles to save the soul of a young girl from a group of Satanists, led by an excommunicated priest, who plan on using her as the representative of the Devil on Earth.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Probably not.

So here we are.  I've now seen every single horror picture made by the Hammer Studio and not only that but this was the last one they made.  I've been putting it off for a very long time because I'd heard it wasn't that good but mostly because it was the last one and I wanted to hold onto it for a while longer.  Now that it's over, it'll be time to go back and re-visit a few of my favorites. Well, it turns out this isn't that bad.  The only trouble is, it isn't that great.  It's above average and there's a lot going for it.  The cast is great and the story is interesting but it's lacking that 'spark' that makes pictures like this great.  But, hey, here are some highlights...

Using the dead mother as a cradle!!!

Nice use of lenses.  You need to see this scene in motion.  It's neat.

Uh, well, uh, gee, uh, Natasja Kinski!

 

 Way cool use of color for the nifty finale!

 
There's actually quite a bit going for it but it's just missing that little something that elevates pictures like this into that upper echelon of horror movies.  Maybe giving it a more Gothic look would have helped.  Beats me.