MartinHafer I read in the IMDb trivia that this film originally was meant as a knockoff of "The Exorcist" and it was re-edited in order, apparently, to avoid legal difficulties. However, in its final form it bears little similarity to "The Exorcist"...or a movie! Instead, it all seems very randomly edited and pointless. And, occasionally, nudity is tossed into the mix but it manages to be very unsexy and even rather silly.The film begins with a hilariously bad choreographed dance scene that looks like it belongs in the John Travolta film "Staying Alive". Then, abruptly, the film switches to an annoying child (Daria) and her mother. It seems that years before the mother was part of a coven and now Daria is becoming a nasty little demonic child. Why? Who knows. All I know is that the actress acted really nasty through much of the film until she ultimately tore off all her clothes at the end--which is very disturbing since she was a pubescent girl--and too young legally to do such explicit stuff in the States. Perhaps Italian laws were more liberal. But this part, if it's possible, makes even LESS sense than the rest of the film and it ends.To say that the film made little sense, was completely amateurish and was stupid would probably be a major understatement. The film is without merit--heck, even the nudity is pretty dull (except for those hoping to see some not-yet legal nudity). A despicable and dumb film with nothing to recommend it. Even for camp value it's pretty worthless.

HumanoidOfFlesh "Ring of Darkness" is a pretty controversial Italian horror movie due to Lara Wendel's underage nudity.Lara Wendel starred in 1977 in scandalous "Maladolescenza",so during shooting of Pier Carpi's movie she was no more than thirteen year old.This sleazy Italian "The Exorcist" clone features plenty of full-frontal nudity provided by Carmen Russo,Marisa Mell,Sofia Dionisio,Dirce Funari and Sonia Viviani.There are some memorable scenes in "Ring of Darkness" including the coven rituals,Marisa Mell confronting Lara Wendel,the exorcism and the nude mother-daughter fight.The women defy Lucifer and that's why Lara Wendel's character becomes aggressive and murderous.Satan is using her as his instrument to get revenge on the brides that have betrayed him.7 out of 10.

The_Void After the release of The Exorcist in 1973; ripping that film off became so popular in Italy that "the Exorcist rip off" almost became a genre. It turns out that Italian filmmakers were still at it six years later and Rings of Darkness is one of the later rip offs. It seems that director Pier Carpi was not happy just to rip off William Friedkin's film, however, and this one also features elements from other Satanic classics such as The Omen and Rosemary's Baby. I have to give the film some credit actually for the plot, as it does feature one of the more interesting ones; although it is rather messy. The basic plot focuses on three women that made a deal with the Devil. However, the Devil has decided to target their young daughters instead; prompting the women to fight back against their master. Unfortunately, it has to be said that this film is something of a missed opportunity and nowhere near as good as it could have been. The atmosphere is really rather good, and while the music is a bit too over the top at times; it does work well. The plot soon becomes indecipherable, however, and unfortunately this means that the film quickly becomes boring. In my experience, most of the Exorcist rip off's are rubbish and this isn't one of the better ones. I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to find a copy.

steveduff3 Spoilers ahead.This abysmal film introduces us to a group of satanist women, all of whom seem to want their daughters to grow up normal. I guess becoming brides of Beelzebub didn't thrill them as much as they'd hoped. The focus is on one woman, Carlotta, played by Anne Heywood, and her 13 year-old daughter Daria, played by Lara Wendel. As the movie progresses, Daria shows a growing interest in the occult and begins to demonstrate her burgeoning magical powers. Carlotta (remember, a bride of Satan no less) freaks out and seeks ways to prevent her daughter from becoming an evil witch.It soon becomes apparent that this is nothing more than the tale of a mother trying to deal with a bratty daughter on the road to womanhood. The supernatural stuff is just tacked on. Daria is more or less like any obnoxious teenager seeking independence from a parent. She's rude. She challenges authority. She thinks she knows everything. Sound familiar?Carlotta goes through various painful (for the viewer) efforts to rid her daughter of the devil, including an exorcism where Lara Wendel appears nude. Wendel was actually 13 or 14 when the film was made and was one of the notorious nude teen stars of the '70s. Not the kind of thing you'd see in an American flick, but an Italian one is something different.The growing tension between Carlotta and Daria comes to a head when Daria finds her mother standing inside a mystic symbol painted on the floor, nude except for a cape. Daria brags that she is now stronger than her mother and calmly begins disrobing to prepare for the skin-on-skin showdown.Well, this is probably not the only movie where a girl of 13 or so and a woman in her 40s appeared nude together (Anne Heywood was 47 when this film was released, and looked fabulous), but it may be the only one to feature a nude catfight between them.Ah, but movie catfights are almost always awful, and this rule goes quintuple for occult films where a clash of magical strength is part of the bargain. I mean, the potential for maybe the greatest movie catfight of all time was right here. Lara Wendel may have been only 13 or 14, but she was as tall as Anne Heywood and her body was slim but very well-developed. A young knockout, to say the least, so with two beautiful actresses playing mother and daughter how can you go wrong?Well, to start with, you can shoot it mostly in the dark (actually, Anne Heywood's nude scene is mostly darkened, so you don't really see much). Then you can have the only positive physical attack be repulsed by pure magic. Who wants to see that? A catfight should have slapping, hair pulling, punching, scratching, kicking, rolling around. The writer can decree that their magics are equally powerful until the end, when the loser can no longer counter the magic of the winner, and you can have a supernatural coup de grace. Simple. I won't say how they did it in RING OF DARKNESS, but I will say that it's hard to imagine a lamer conclusion. And in this mother/daughter nude catfight, nothing of interest occurs. In fact, it's a stretch to even call it a catfight.So they had a chance to deliver a truly amazing brawl and instead produced a non-fight. The viewer is thus cheated of the conclusion the whole movie built up to, therefore the movie is odious and awful. The only other points of interest are the nude scenes. Anne Heywood's was darkened, Lara Wendel's were more numerous and had better lighting. 3 stars out of 10.