Demon Witch Child (1975)

Original title: La Endemoniada

AKA: The Possessed

Director: Amando de Ossorio

Writer: Amando de Ossorio

Composers: Diego, Victor

Starring: Julian Mateos, Marian Salgado, Fernando Sancho, Lone Fleming, Angel del Pozo, Kali Hansa, Daniel Martin, Tota Alba, Roberto Camardiel, Maria Kosty, Fernando Hilbeck

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Good and evil battle for possession of the innocent!

Plot: An old witch seeks vengence through the daughter of the politician who had her thrown in jail. Soon the little girl's head is spinning around, and an old priest is called in to perform an exorcism.

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Ya know, watching all of the movies from the Fortune 5 Grindhouse Experience set is a real chore.  The prints are lousy (most of them are VHS fullscreen transfers) and so are most of the films, this one is no exception.  I'm not a huge fan of THE EXORCIST (1973) but I do like the film...just not as much as most people seem to.  So that pretty much means that I'm probably not going to like the countless Exorcist clones that followed in the tremendous wake of that film's success.  This one is one of several that came out of Spain, which makes sense considering the country is heavily Catholic, and it's directed by the same cat that did the BLIND DEAD series in the early to mid 70s. Those films I dig and I can handle the casual pacing he delivers but that's probably because they have a Gothic vibe to them and the blind dead guys are fucking badass looking.  This film is just plain slow.  The poor English dubbing doesn't help, either.  Who cares when it's loaded with smokin' hot chicks!!!

It hits a lot of the beats THE EXORCIST did like the girl getting possessed, the concerned parents, the doctors that try to help and so on.  BUT there's a catch, and it's this part that makes this stand apart from THE EXORCIST.  It's a satanic cult that's causing her possession.  They need her for a ceremony of sorts.  One cool thing they do is sacrifice a baby.  Nice!  I don't have kids...can you tell?  You don't see that much in movies.  That's the biggest difference between this film and the one it's cashing in on and it ends as you would expect.  There's only so much you can do with devil possession and this is one of many variations on a theme for a tune I'm only luke warm about.