Customer Reviews

Daughters of Satan (Amazon.com Exclusive) [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

rather disappointing film about witches and the supernatural starring tom selleck as a husband who's wife becomes interested in witchcraft after seeing what apparently is a portrait of herself as a witch from centuries past. eventually her interest in witches turns to obsession, she joins a cult, and then becomes a witch herself.

although the film lacks a strong storyline and plot, and the acting is awful (even selleck's), it does succeed at creating a dark, eerie atmosphere and the movie does have genuinely disturbing moments. the music is very fitting, too.

about what i said before in regard to selleck's acting, it truly is bad, but this is one of his earliest roles (maybe his first) and i don't think you should judge anyone by their first flick. aside from selleck, i dont believe any of the other people in the film ever made the step above B-movie status.

even though i've only given this film a 2 star rating, i think its worth sitting through atleast once for a chance to see a young and amateurish tom selleck, if for no other reason.

fans of tom may feel as though they've been "stabbed in the back" after witnessing the film's schocking surprise ending.

This is one of those films I saw as a kid on late night TV, and it scared the bejeezus out of me. Then I saw it by chance in college, and it was so silly and funny...but still a little creepy. Yes, bad acting, bad filmmaking, bad plot, but why do I still like it? I agree with another reviewer about the MST-3K quality to this film...plus beefcakey Tom Selleck thrown in for good measure. It touches all the 70's taboos: a bit grindhouse, a bit sexploitation, a bit of S & M, AND a kick butt ending you'll never see coming. I'd say it is solid B-movie fare.

I found and rented this at a video outlet that includes alot of hard-to-find, little known films. The front cover has a hand-drawn and painted picture of Tom Selleck holding a knife, with tied-up witches in the backround. The tagline read,"When Satan meets Selleck, sparks fly!" The plot description on the back included the sentence,"Selleck fans will love every minute of it, right on the edge of their seats." All this had me thinking that Tom would be playing an Ash-type horror movie hero, where he would at first be menaced but then would ultimatly end up kicking evil's butt. Well, that turned out not to be the case. Tom's character makes a narrow escape from death once or twice in the film, but otherwise seems to be playing your standered horror-movie male victim.

Selleck plays Jim Roberts, a professional art expert who's been living in the Philippines for the past four months with his wife, Chris. Then one day Jim is visiting an art shop when he finds a painting from the year 1592, showing three women and a black dog about to be burned to the stake by Spanish witch hunters. Jim decides to buy it and take it home with him. (Good idea, buy a painting with a woman who looks exactly like your wife who's about to be burned alive so you can take it home to show to her. Yeah, I'm sure she'll really love you for that.) Anyway, his wife Chris is understandably creeped out by it.

Later on strange things happen. They hire a native housekeeper named Juana Rios. O.K., that's not so strange, but then Juana tells Chris she's a reincarnation of a witch who was burned to death centeries before, that her husband is the decendant of one of the men who burned her to death, and that she must kill him. Characters in the picture begin to fade away, and a black dog just like the one in the painting appears and tries to attack Jim every chance it gets, but Chris and Juana are able to calm it down. A Philipino psychiatrist, Dr. Dangal, tries to warn Jim that his loving wife is being used by outside forces against her will to try to kill him. The doctor is also a decendant of one of the witch-hunters, and he soon is killed. In Jim's one and only somewhat-heroic scene, he narrowly escapes getting killed by some of the male members of the witch cult. Chris soon seems to become a different person, and soon is reaching for a large knife whenever her husband is around...

(SPOILER WARNING!)

This film will probably upset especially people who are Tom Selleck fans, mostly because of the ending. (That is, apart from the torture scenes we see in the witch covent. Ah, the 1970s.) At the end, the three witches-Chris, Juana, and Kitty, a patient of Dr. Dangal's, drug Jim and put him in his car over a cliff, with blocks of ice holding his car in place. They then go to a diner. As to why they don't just kill him right away, maybe they need to have him die right at midnight, I don't know. (My memory is a little hazy.) Anyway, the blocks of ice melt, the car goes down the cliff in flames, and at midnight, the three women suddenly get back their own personalities and are suddenly wondering how they got where they are. Chris goes home, having the worst feeling that something awful's happened to her husband. But wait! Once she gets home, she finds Jim waiting to greet her! Jim is quite confused himself, having woken up in his car and then having gotten out of it just before it went off a cliff. Then as they go to bed, they see the black dog that always hated Jim in the house, though now acting quite friendly and tame. And the characters in the picture are now all back in it, with none of them fading out. Everything seems to be all O.K.

OR IS IT?!?! For just as we think the film's going to have a happy ending and Selleck fans can walk away with a faverable memory of the movie, just as Jim is cuddling with Chris and has his back turned to the painting, the woman who looks like his wife fades away, and then Chris, possessed again, takes a knife and quite litterally backstabs Jim. Cue end credits.

OK, this isn't a bad film but don't sit and watch this with your teenagers. The graphic torture scene in the beginning of this film will probable limit your veiwing this film to the older horror buffs. It will cause great pyscological harm to any child unless he's related to Chucky. The plot carries the movie as Magnum (Selleck) living in the Philippines (So Hawaii), married to a beautiful woman. Turned possessed pyscho by a coven of native witches who want to end his miserable life. Classic B Movie Good vs Evil mixed with the some very sick (director's "Hollingsworth Morse") thoughts. Too, sexually graphic to see with kids, Tom Selleck fans may want to avoid this unless you like sick creepy stuff that stays with you forever.

I gave this movie to a friend who likes this sort of movie genre. He said it's a good movie.

Tom, can I say more. What a lot of a man. If just to only watch him is all I need to do. This movie was not his best but, who cares.

I happened upon this video years ago , and I actually forgot how funny it was. The acting was terrible the scenery awful and the plot unbelievable. If you look closely you'll see a young Tom Selleck as the husband of one of the daughters of Satan. All the awful stuff aside it really is a funny movie something that should be on Mystery Science Theater, thats how funny it is . My friend Pia is from the Phillipines and she actually had a great time watching the movie, if you want to have a great laugh get some wine, crackers and a few friends over belive me its worth. it .

This was one of those great tv movies of the week that
you could find on tv in the 70's! Great writing and acting
by some of the best actors. Tom Selleck is in this! If you
are a fan of mystery/horror than this is a good movie to
see what you missed. They don't make them like this. The
person who wrote the first review said nothing of the
movie except insulted cause it's not accurate about
witches? please! I think they have other issues.

This movie features a early Tom Selleck performance and he handles it very well. The lead actress also shines here , the supporting csst isn't half bad either. The problem is the vague script and low budget. This was made in the phillipines , that country at the time had it's own film industry and produced some wild movies like 'octoman' and some decent war movies too. These were all low budget affairs but they have some charm, this one has a unclear plot in that the satanists reincarnatied witches don't remember who they are. This just spoils the premise to a degree but it's at least in english and the print looks pretty good on dvd. It's horror exploitation (it has some nudity fmeale of course and scenes of half naked women getting whipped too) but that doesn't save this one in the end. However I love horror flicks and have seen alot worse. the idea of the painting possessing people was a good one too but it's the blanking out part of this that spoils it.

OK. I'm a sucker for old style horror. You know the type, has a plot, suspense, shock some gore, happy endings (sometimes)?

Well this isn't one of them.

A very pleasant to look at Tom Selleck complete with a Robin Masters type sports car but set in the Phillipines not Hawaii is the central part of the movie and that is about it.

A devilish story, with demonic acting and about lousy paintings which carry the spirits of long dead witches seeking revenge is essentially the plot but it is just a mess really with cheesy special effects and bad acting and the worst thing was I watched it right the way through until the end on late night tv when I could have been sleeping through it instead.

Next time, I will record movies like this and be ruthless about getting rid of them when they appear to be as bad as this.

Hubble bubble toil and too much trouble.