A Candle for the Devil (1974)

Excellent but underrated film

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A Candle for the Devil (1973) *** (out of 4) Fun Spanish shocker has Marta (Aurora Baustista) and her sister Veronica (Esperanza Roy) running a hotel where one day Marta accidentally kills a woman because she's a sinner. Marta sees this as her calling but things get complicated when the woman's sister Laura (Judy Geeson) shows up. Pretty soon Marta begins killing any woman she sees as sinful but Laura soon realizes that something isn't quite right.Eugenio Martin's film is available in several different versions but I managed to watch the 88 minute cut, which to my knowledge is the longest one available. While the film is certainly flawed and could have been improved on many levels for the most part I found it to be a satisfying horror film, which was clearly meant to send a message to those religious nuts who think they should decide the fate of others. If you're familiar with Spain's history then you'll know that censorship was a long standing thing in the Franco era and this film is clearly a middle finger to that.I think the film benefits from the beautiful locations and there's no doubt that Martin uses them to build up a pretty good atmosphere. I thought another major plus were the performances of the two sisters. Bautista is certainly the stand out as the older sister who slowly starts to lose her already unstable mind when she believes she's carrying out the will of God. Roy is also extremely good in her part as she pretty much gets dragged along in the mess. Geeson wasn't nearly as good and she was a little dry in the part but I still thought she was entertaining enough to help pull the movie through.I think there could have been some stuff handled better including some of the pacing at the middle of the picture. Perhaps another body or two would have improved things or at least kept it moving at a faster pace. The film does contain some nice cinematography and a good score, which are more pluses. A CANDLE FOR THE DEVIL isn't a masterpiece but it's certainly a nice horror film for the period.

Two old spinsters, with love, get to terrorize the beautiful British heroine Judy Geeson in this Spanish horror movie where morality rules, and the punishment for doing anything less than moral, is to end up facing the wrath that they believe God has given them the permission to bring to Earth. Aurora Bautista and Esperanza Roy are sisters as different as night and day; Bautista is strong and ruthless, while Roy is much more feminine and certainly still desirable. But for some reason, they've concentrated on running their inn which has a very popular local restaurant, and when young single women come to stay there, they are very lucky if they make it out alive, as if they got two quiet stamps of moral approval. Geeson shows up to meet her sister (apparently much more wild than she is) and finds her to be missing. Suspicious, Geeson begins to investigate, and what she discovers is something so horrifying that it defies even her worst nightmares.Slow-moving at first, this takes off once it becomes clear that these two seemingly nice women have other things up their sleeves besides their arms. Certainly, there have been horror movies about two sisters before, and certainly, there have been horror movies about evil doings going on in hotels before. This one establishes tension, not only between the sisters and Geeson, but between the sisters themselves. It is also a warning that true insanity has an invisible face, and as the world crumbles around them, it really becomes a lot of fun to watch everything play out. The only real problem for me was the lack of a real climax and a satisfying resolution. Still, performances are all strong, the shocks are there, and overall, it never seems forced or ridiculous. It's also a strong message for moralists that there is a thin line between goodness and madness when one's standards become too much to expect from the general population at large.

Two old maid sisters are running a little family hotel in Spain. They are very religious and the moral of the foreign tourist girl is too much for them. They start to kill them.First of all, 3 minutes into this movie there is hot blonde nudity which in my mind is a great beginning.Then there is one of the shortest skirts and longest legs I've ever seen.It's not a bad movie for the genre. Sort of a cult movie.

This is a grisly, superbly amusing Gothic horror story with vivid performances from the mature ladies, they are admirably enigmatic and mysterious . It's a Spanish classic of the chilly grotesque with awesome duo, a convincingly gruesome twosome as spinsters, Aurora Bautista and Esperanza Roy as the weird house keepers. The sisters living together in a gloomy boarding house hire rooms to tourists and develop an awful habit only murder them. They portray fanatic aging sisters , when the demented Aurora learns of sexpot boarders she kill them. Meanwhile Judy Geeson takes a room in hopes of solving the mystery of disappearing her sister, Loreta Tovar as the murder victim at the start. Bautista plays her part to the hilt, unafraid of Eugenio Martin's unsympathetic camera and the viciousness of her character .The picture packs atmospheric blending of eerie thrills and creepy chills combined with a terrific finale. It displays lots of guts and blood but it seems pretty mild compared to today's gore feasts. It's an unrelenting shock-feast laced with nice acting by the two Spanish stars that deserves its cult status. Watch for Aurora Bautista who makes an indelible mark on the movie as the deranged and religious keeper. Judy Geeson, too, is excellent as tourist investigating the strange events in the gloomy mansion. Lively secondary cast is frankly cool, formed by Spanish support casting, as Fernando Hilbeck, Vic Winner , Lone Fleming and Blanca Estrada , both taking early film roles. Bone-chilling musical score by Antonio Perez Olea. Passable photography with juicy atmosphere by Jose Aguayo, but unfortunately turns too much murky in some video print . The picture belongs to sub-genre about killings committed by aging spinsters women such as the classic ¨What ever happened to Baby Jane ? (1962) ¨by Robert Aldrich with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, ¨Huss, Huss, sweet Charlotte (1965)¨ by Aldrich with Bette Davis and Olivia De Havilland and ¨Whatever happened to aunt Alice ? (1969)¨by Lee H Katzin with Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon, among others.The motion picture is professionally directed by Eugenio Martin or Gene Martin. He's a horror movies expert(Hypnosis, A candle for the devil, The fourth Mrs Anderson) and Spaghetti Western(Pancho Villa, Bounty hunter, Bad man's river). Rating : Acceptable horror movie, well worth watching. This macabre movie thriller that commits viewers to sit chewing their fingernails for more than ninety minutes will appeal to Euro-horror fans.