The Touch of Satan (1971)

Thanks for the memories!

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Sometimes I feel like I ramble on and on when I'm writing one of these. No worries this time though, because I'm keeping it short and sweet. The Touch of Satan is one of the biggest bores of a movie to ever come down the pike. Lackluster people doing dull and unimaginative things make for one excruciating experience. Even when Grandma shows up and hacks up a few people, it's met with the same ho-hum enthusiasm as the rest of the movie. For what it's worth, I've rated The Touch of Satan an incredibly generous 2/10.As with many of the "bad" movies I've been watching lately, I saw The Touch of Satan courtesy of Mystery Science Theater 3000. While some of the riffs (particularly those about the long pauses in the dialogue) are very funny, overall the episode is too inconsistent to rate too highly. I'll give Episode #908 a wishy-washy and very average 3/5 on my MST3K rating scale.

"Touch Of Satan" has the feel of a movie destined for the 3rd feature at an drive-in triple feature. You get the feeling that by the time this thing started rolling at 1:00 am, everyone left at the drive-in was either 90% asleep, drunk off their butts, or so involved in heavy petting that it didn't matter what was on the screen. So on that level, TOS worked fine. It filled in 90+ minutes of screen and gave the night-owls some video background to accompany whatever their real priority happened to be at the time. Unfortunately, I had to watch it while wide awake, 100% sober, and undistracted by any opportunity to smooch and make out. And so I have little use (or pity) for this movie....and I have to confess that it was so incredibly dull that I had a lot of trouble making myself pay attention to it. I kept pausing the VCR to get a soda, or go to the bathroom, or make myself a sandwich, or make a phone call, or to start the dishwasher. Then I'd get back, start things up again, and try to pay attention for another 5 minutes...only to decide it was time to start the laundry, or pay a couple of bills, or do some push-ups...But unless a movie is actively offensive or horrifically awful, I always try to watch a movie all the way through and give it every chance to prove itself. So I eventually got to the end of "TOS", and my final reaction was...."Meh.". I have to admit, there is the germ of a decent, unsettling story in this movie, and there is a plot twist that could actually be considered somewhat clever. The cinematography is OK in a 70's "Movie Of the Week" way, and the young romantic leads are decent looking, if not particularly striking. But even though director Tom Laughlin (of "Billy Jack" and "Master Gunfigher" fame) had previously managed to make some involving (if contrived) movies, here he couldn't pace a dramatic scene to save his life, and he definitely didn't have the know-how or the talent to make these uncharismatic actors carry the movie. Maybe he should have stuck to directing himself and his regular cast of cronies. Or maybe he should have stuck in some hapkido or some gunfighting to pick things up a bit. He definitely didn't have a feel for "horror". As a previous reviewer astutely commented, this movie screams for a remake. Unlike good older movies, which are often happy accidents of inspiration, zeitgeist, and talent, the addition of modern 'gee-whiz' MTV jump cuts, CGI, and hot young actors would add a lot of visual interest to the proceedings, and would help frame the mildly interesting plot in a flattering way that held the viewer's attention. However, that probably isn't going to happen. Hollywood is never going to be that desperate for material that this dull-tastic collection of 70's clichés will ever get a shiny new outfit. Even in the MST version, the guys just didn't have anything to work with. That's kind of sad.

**This review is based on the MST3K version of the movie.**This is a movie about a direction-less, spineless, and unlikable "hero" ( or at least the producer's idea of one) named Jodie who drives out to the country to eat his sandwich and meets a farm girl named Melissa. Melissa has a slight problem being that about 120 years ago she sold her soul to Satan and with our "hero" Jodie ( a male ) on the job the chances for correcting this problem do not look good. Jodie ends up spending a couple of days with Melissa at her family's walnut farm with her drab family who we do not care for or find interesting except for her old and ugly sister who makes a few appearances to murder people.The acting is bad but what will really get to you is the SLOW dialog between the two main characters. If you edited out half the gaps between their words the conversation might actually appear to flow normally but since this was not done you are simply left with big gaps where audience members ( the smart ones that is ) will run out of patience and leave the room. It is amazing that the editor left these scenes in; "Yes, no room for improvement here. Another perfect take HA HA!" Speaking of amazing, the song "Amazing Grace" is featured about half a dozen times toward the end of the film. It would have been interesting to have seen this in the theater to see how much the audience groaned when the song started for the third or fourth time. I am sure that a collective "Not again !" drowned out the first measure of the fourth, fifth, and sixth renditions of the song.About the only good thing about the movie is the woman who plays Melissa. She is most pleasant to look at. You think with a few, make that A LOT of acting lessons, her career could have been salvaged but it was not to be. With the mean-spirited and well-crafted remarks of the Mystery Science Theater gang the viewing experience will be about an 8 1/2. This is one of their best projects. They really tear this movie apart which is exactly what it deserves. Without them I only issue this warning; DO NOT WATCH THIS FILM ! YOU WILL BE SORRY ! I GAVE IT A 2 OUT OF 10 AND I MEAN IT !!!**** SEMI-SPOILER AHEAD****Our "hero" Jodie lets us down right to the end of the film. No surprise that a guy who takes THREE DAY lunch breaks is not a champion overcomer of adversity. Non-Christians will find the ending unclimatic but Christians will probably find it offensive much like I did. Remember, throwing a rock or an empty beer bottle at your television will not hurt those who are responsible for this film so just write a scathing review like I did. God Bless Mike and his robot friends.

(spoilers)Did anyone else actually enjoy the mad killer Grandma? At least she wasn't boring, and she didn't perpetually pause like the rest of the cast. Jody's a dull wuss, Melissa's a floppy vacuous Rhoda like girl, and her 'parents' aren't much either. Lucinda's actually alot of fun-from drifting into Jody's room to scare the crap out of him, to stabbing the womany cop to death with a hay hook. And heck, she even almost managed to kill the annoying Jody, so kudos to the crazed old witch for at least providing some entertainment value in this otherwise extremely slow film. And senseless, let's not forget senseless. There are so many things in this film that simply don't make any sense at all. Just who ARE the 'Stricklands'? Are they related in any way, or did Melissa simply force them to live on her ranch and pretend to be her parents? Why did Satan bother to possess Melissa at all, if he/she never intended to return? Don't you think the Devil would have found something for his servant to do in the last one hundred and twenty years besides try to corral her mad sister? Why don't the townspeople realize that Melissa never ages? How does Jody sleeping with Melissa(maybe to prove his 'love' for her was real?) help her escape from her devilish deal? And what kind of moron does it take to sell himself to the Devil just to get seconds? So they're both in the service of the Devil, and the whole beginning of the plot is negated. Melissa doesn't escape her eternal torment, Satan now has puss boy's soul as well, and nothing has been accomplished. Way to go, idiot. Besides these annoying little niggles, there's also the crappy soundtrack, the lighting that makes it appear as though the sun is going nova in every shot, and the apparent sleepiness of all of the cast members except for the dynamic but crazed Lucinda. The Touch if Satan apparently is supposed to make one fall asleep.