3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Original, but kind of bland, July 15, 2007
This movie is available from the UK as a PAL Region 0 disc under its non-USA title of "Blood Sabbath". Don't be fooled by the very cool cover art (the scene depicted is not in this movie). This movie has nothing in particular to do with Satanism. Instead this movie turned out to unexpectedly be more like fantasy with a horror twist to it.
The story deals with a young Vietnam vet who goes off cross-country (as was the vogue in those days of "dropping out") as a kind of wandering hippy vagabond. His travels bring him to a lake, where he meets and falls in love with a beautiful female creature of the lake, a water nymph (--see, I told you this is fantasy). But she tells him that their love cannot be, as water nymphs are not allowed to love humans because they have souls. Thus our handsome hero sets out to find some way to get rid of his unwanted soul and fulfill his dreams of love.
Well, just so happens that in this neck of Mexico (yep that's right, it's not until about 1/2 hour into the movie that we realize this is all supposed to be taking place in Mexico) there is a an evil head witch and her cult of female followers (who are conveniently usually in some state of nekkidness). The scheming witch agrees to his request to remove his soul, but has her own plans. From there the story goes on to take its fairly predictable and not particularly interesting twists and turns.
This movie must be a great embarrassment for Anthony Geary, who plays the young man, as he would go on to gain great fame and fortune on daytime soaps as Luke (yes that Luke, of "Luke & Laura" fame) on TV's "General Hospital". The head witch is played by Dyanne Thorne, notorious for her "Ilsa" series. In this movie she has black hair (which looks like a bad wig?), and the attractive water nymph actress also sports a TERRIBLE fake looking wig. But although there are a couple of revealing scenes of Thorne (watch for one brief dancing seduction scene in particular) I was disappointed that we actually don't get to see much of her incredible bod. And although there is a great deal of other nudity in this film, none of it is especially interesting.
In fact that's the whole problem with this film. Although I'd really like to give it 4 stars because the concept is so original, I just found that nothing about it was very interesting. Not the acting, not the story, not even the nudity. Although with its nudity and evil cultists the film might have seemed particularly shocking and racy in 1972, today it seems incredibly tame. And in case you're considering this movie on its potential merits as schlock, it doesn't really work there either. This movie is not campy, and instead tries to take itself seriously. But since the story is not strong enough to hold our interest, in the end the whole thing comes off as just plain bland.
Anyway, I still got a kick out of watching Dyanne Thorne's character performing a human sacrifice in one scene, as I hear that today Thorne has become an ordained minister somewhere in Las Vegas. That's a long way to go from roles like this and Ilsa to becoming a preacher. Somebody ought to write a book about it!
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