To the Devil a Daughter (1976)

Simply A Masterpiece

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

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

Hammer's last horror film is another adaptation of a Dennis Wheatley novel. They had previously done The Lost Continent, which sucked, and The Devil Rides Out, which also starred Christopher Lee and had a slightly similar plot to this. In that film, Lee rescues the son of a friend from a Satanic cult. In this film, Richard Widmark rescues the daughter of a friend from a Satanic cult. This time Lee's the villain. Playing the young nun pursued by Satanists is a teenage Nastassja Kinski. Also in the cast are the great Denholm Elliott and former Bond girl (here a sexy MILF) Honor Blackman.The Devil Rides Out was a superior movie in every way, not least of which was the script by Richard Matheson. This script is a mess and suffered through several rewrites. Dennis Wheatley was so disgusted by this movie that he told Hammer he no longer wanted them to adapt his work. Not that it mattered much as Hammer went out of business a few years later. Since this was released post-Exorcist, Hammer tried to get on that bandwagon and be as outrageous as possible. Most of this will seem pretty tame to modern audiences but was pretty shocking at the time. Hammer always had sex and violence as part of its horror formula but here with full-frontal nudity, some nasty sex scenes, and quite a bit of bloodiness, it makes most previous Hammer films seem like they should be rated G. Taking all of this into account, it's a watchable second-rate 'devil movie.' A good cast helps a lot. It's not the worst Hammer horror movie but it's far from their best. Look out for the stupid abrupt ending. Favorite quote: "98% of so-called Satanists are nothing but pathetic freaks who get their kicks out of dancing naked in freezing churchyards and use the Devil as an excuse for getting some sex." Sounds about right.

To the Devil a Daughter is the second Hammer film to be based on a Dennis Wheatley occult novel. This one seems to be aimed primarily at cashing in on the 70's craze for Satanic horror. It was in fact the last film to be made by Hammer and it does unfortunately have a fairly poor reputation. While this is not entirely unjustified, it does have some good moments and it is a decent entry in the occult film cycle.In a nutshell the story is about a defrocked priest who organises a birth where the baby is taken away and primed to be given to Satan on her 18th birthday. She is taken out of this situation at the last moment and put under the protection of a pulp writer who specialises in occult pot-boilers. From here the forces of Satan try all they can to prise the girl away into their grasp.There is a pretty good cast in this one. Christopher Lee is good as the excommunicated priest; while Nastassja Kinski is the girl, Denholm Elliot her father, Richard Widmark is the writer and Honor Blackman one of his friends. Not bad acting personnel all things considered. Also in the movie's favour are some effective creepy and horrible moments. Like the little red homunculus who appears mysteriously in the mirror, then later crawls over Kinski like an aborted foetus come to life. The Satanic ceremonies are well done too, and there is a bloody birth scene. It's certainly a more explicit film than was usual for a Hammer production.Sadly, there are problems too. Its story isn't very original nor especially inspired. While the infamous ending is genuinely awful. Lee is a high priest of Satan yet he is defeated when Widmark throws a stone at him. Not only that but he disappears for some reason too. Its very hard to understand what the film-makers thought they were playing at with this non-ending. Despite that though, this is not the rotten film it is sometimes made out to be and is a good enough occult horror.

An occult writer(Richard Widmark)attempts to prevent a young nun(Nastassja Kinski)from falling into the hands of a satanic priest(Christopher Lee)and his heretical religious cult,who plan to use her as the human host for their dark god."To the Devil a Daughter" is Hammer's last theatrically released horror film.The lush photography and memorable performances are the main reasons to see this underrated gem of occult horror.There are some bizarre and highly unsettling dream sequences and a bit of graphic nudity and gore.The childbirth scene is particularly gruesome.Very young 16-year old Nastassja Kinski provides some sleaze and Christopher Lee is gloriously evil as a devilish priest.8 out of 10.

Popular occult author Dennis Wheatley was so pleased with Hammer's 1968 movie version of his novel The Devil Rides Out that he happily agreed to them making further adaptations of his work, even going so far as to granting the rights for nothing. It was an offer that, eventually, the ailing studio could not afford to ignore.Choosing to develop To The Devil A Daughter, however, was probably a bad decision: budgetary constraints meant that a faithful interpretation of Wheatley's book was impossible to achieve, and after much script wrangling, filming went ahead whilst further revisions were still being made.To add to Hammer's problems, star Widmark was not a happy bunny on set, being displeased with the non-Hollywood film making process employed by director Peter Sykes and his crew.However, despite all the problems, somehow, eventually, a finished product was delivered—only to suffer from some hasty re-editing when some bright spark commented that the original ending bore too much resemblance to that of an earlier Hammer movie, Scars of Dracula. With such a troubled production, To The Devil A Daughter is an understandably less than perfect film, but despite its flaws, it still proves to be an entertaining dose of Satanic nonsense.Widmark plays John Verney, an American occult novelist who is approached by a strange man named Henry Beddows (Denholm Elliot), who claims to be involved with a cult named The Children of the Lord, led by the sinister Father Michael Rayner (Christopher Lee, in fine form). Intrigued, Verney agrees to pick up Beddows' daughter Catherine (Nastassja Kinski) from the airport and look after her until they can meet again. In reality, Beddows is trying to protect his daughter from Rayner, who selected the girl at birth for a ritual—scheduled to take place on her impending 18th birthday—that will see her becoming an avatar for the demon Astaroth.With such a great cast (that also includes Honor Blackman), and Wheatley's well researched black magic mumbo jumbo forming the basis of the script, To The Devil A Daughter trundles along quite nicely for the majority of its running time, offering audiences plenty of fun devilish goings-on, including the nasty birth of a demon child (which exits via the abdomen), Blackman being stabbed in the neck with a metal comb, one poor character going up in flames, Lee terrorising a trembling Elliot over the phone, and the lovely Nastassja giving viewers an eyeful of her hot bod.Unfortunately, the messy finalé (which sees Lee's character disappear mysteriously after receiving a bump on the head) does mean that the film closes on something of a bum note and admittedly cannot hold a (black) candle to the real Satanic hit of '76, The Omen, but it's also nowhere near as bad as some Hammer fans would have you believe.6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.