The Brotherhood of Satan (1971)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Excellent adaptation.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

A rather interesting early-seventies curio, with Strother Martin playing a western small-town doctor who heads a satanic cult in his spare time. This group of devil worshipers mainly consist of senior citizens, and they have a vested interest in corrupting young children to commit acts of violence and to achieve immortality through them. It's unfortunate that, as the film plays, its intentions are not very clearly laid out, and this is a bit more muddled than it should be. But it's engaging enough, with quite a spectacle of an ending. Seeing an overwrought Strother Martin getting totally into his role as a tyrannical coven leader is a treat in itself. **1/2 out of ****

**SPOILERS** Interesting little film about a Satanic takeover of the little town of Hillsboro California by using the children of the townspeople in the most evil and ungodly ways.This coven of witches are now about to meet their master Satan in the world beyond in that they've reached the age where their no longer needed in his service. The last act of evil left for these witches and warlocks is to have them transfer their souls, if in fact they have any, into the children of Hillsboro and thus continue a new cycle of evil.It's both Ben and Nicki, Charles Bateman & Ahna Capri, together with their adopted six year old daughter K.T, Geri Reischi, who have the misfortune to drive through Hillsboro and become part of this evil plan conjured up by the local and undercover Satanists who are actually in control of the town. With 26 of the town citizens killed in a series of unexplained accidents over the last 72 hours the town's very concerned Sheriff Pete,L,Q Jones, is besides himself in just what's behind their brutal deaths. It's also noted by Sheriff Pete and retired town doctor Doc Duncan, Stother Martin, that those person's, who were killed, children had mysteriously disappeared! It's later in the movie that little K.T ends up missing together with the rest of the towns 12 other children who seemed to have vanished from off the face of the earth!It's the town's man of the cloth Priest Jack,Charles Robinson, who uncovers the reason why all these strange and unexplained event are really happening. Priest Jack uncovered the secret plan hatched by the leader of the Satanic and Witches cult through old manuscripts about the inner workings of Satanism. It also later turns out that the poor Priest Jack really loses it when he witnesses one of the townspeople end up getting decapitated right before his eyes. This by a dark horseman who seemed to materialize out of thin air! It turned out that the now headless and dead man's son joined the other children who disappeared and ended up later becoming part of the evil that's taken hold of Hillsboro! ***SPOILER ALERT*** The films unnerving final sequence has all witches and warlocks get just what they deserve in a flaming and sword wheeling ending with even Mr. Big, the head Satanist, not escaping the carnage. It also turns out that this was the plan concocted by the leader of the cult all along! He ended up dead but in his, and his followers, case death was not the end but only the beginning!

A young couple -- father Ben (solid Charles Bateman), wife Nicky (the lovely Ahna Capri) and their daughter KT (the cute Geri Reischl of "I Dismember Mama" fame) -- find themselves trapped in a small California desert town populated by hysterical lunatics. Worse yet, there's a pernicious Satanic cult that's been abducting little children for their own diabolical purposes. Director Bernard McEveety, working from an offbeat and inspired script by William Welch and L.Q. Jones ("Devil Times Five" director Sean MacGregor came up with the bizarre story), relates the compellingly oddball plot at a slow, yet steady pace and ably creates a creepy, edgy, mysterious ooga-booga atmosphere. Strother Martin delivers a wonderfully wicked and robust performance as Doc Duncan, who's the gleefully sinister leader of the evil sect. The top-rate cast of excellent character actors qualifies as a substantial asset: Jones as gruff, no-nonsense Sheriff Hillsboro, Alvy Moore as friendly local Toby, and Charles Robinson as a shrewd, fiercely devout priest Jack. John Arthur Morrill's bright, polished widescreen cinematography, Jamie Mendoza-Nava's spooky score, and the wild, rousing climactic black mass ritual are all likewise up to speed. The idea of having toys come to murderous life is simply ingenious (the opening scene with a toy tank coming real and crushing a family in their car is truly jolting). Nice eerily ambiguous ending, too. A pleasingly idiosyncratic and under-appreciated winner.

This is one of those religious horror films which never explain why the forces of "evil" are 10,000 times stronger than those of "good". We've got here a Satanic cult which can: 1) "beam away" people (like in "Star Trek"), 2) kill through little children's dolls, 3) transfer a soul from one body into another, 4) hypnotize telepathically from a bigger distance, and 5) cause drastic car-crashes in which selected persons turn into spaghetti while others (kids, in this case) survive unscathed.On the other hand, the forces of "good" can: 1) sit around helplessly, 2) stand around cluelessly, 3) panic, 4) laugh hysterically, 5) waste time by doing nothing, 6) read comics while people get slaughtered by the dozens, and 7) arrive too late to Satanic rituals.In every religious horror movie I have to assume that that movie's world is inhabited by God and by Satan. I also have to assume that Satan can't be 1,000,000 times more powerful, unless the movie has a world order resembling that of Hell. In other words, where were the priests in this film who knew something? The best that this movie's priest could do is guess that there are some witches about - nothing else - from reading all those books in his study. At the first sight of violence this priest becomes catatonic, then laughs hysterically, only to finish in a major panic attack. So this is supposed to be God's contribution to fighting Satan? Ridiculous. Every good religious horror film has the powers of "good" equipped with some form of (more-or-less) supernatural power, or at least SOME concrete knowledge of how to fight "evil". In that sense this movie is quite idiotic. As is the casting of the droll Martin to play the high priest(!) of the cult. There is very little menace or awe in watching the quirky Martin lead a Satanic ritual. I mean, it didn't have to be Christopher Lee or Langhella, but couldn't they have found someone less funny-looking? Also, why does the couple go back to the town after their car is put out of the running? After their "friendly" encounter with the town's folk no sane person would have gone back; they should've just walked on. The man's explanation to his girlfriend (and the viewer) is that "who knows what's in that direction".