SERVOMOORE
Seriously, if it weren't for the fact that the DVD of this MST3K Episode contained the trailer, I would not believe this got any distribution.I'm not saying this film had no merits: some cinematography ain't bad, the music's relatively cool, and.... it's just that everything is so bad that it completely blots out those assests to this film, driving this film down to Hell where it belongs. I spent the whole thing wishing it would end with an atom bomb detonating, and taking everyone out. I actually bear the lead characters a grudge: shame on you, Jody guy, you were boring and apparently arrogant enough to assume your fifty year-old guy's face was handsome enough you didn't need to act, and Emby(Melissa), I now take pride in my dreckiest films because they don't include YOU! How could you guys not see what a terrible script you were backing? Hmmm?Now, the old homicidal (Promicidal) woman, you make that Crenshaw guy in Boggy Creek Two seem likable and dimensioned: I wasn't supposed to like you, but you went too far. Bad direction, bad characters, and most annoying, this script is ARROGANT in it's anti-Christianity. look, guys, your ability (what little there is) to make regular people seem bad doesn't prove a thing. You are in no position to criticize anyone else. Rating: .5/4, good for making fun of and destroying.
Gafke
A young man named Jody drives across country and decides to stop and have lunch in a small town where, he's been told, a "chromichidal maniac" is on the loose. He meets a young pretty girl named Melissa, falls instantly love and follows her home for dinner. Dinner turns into a weekend and we slowly (very slowly) learn that Melissa is no ordinary seventeen year old girl. She's a 120 year old witch who sold her soul to Satan, and the incredibly wrinkled woman she claims is her great grandmother is actually her little sister...and a "chromichidal maniac" to boot. Seems Melissa sold her soul to save the weird old chick from being burned at the stake by an angry mob 120 years earlier. Now, it seems, nothing can save Melissa from the curse...except perhaps for Jody's love. Will he sell his own soul to save her? Who cares?This 70s effort is filled with bad acting, a terrible script and a story that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The flashbacks to the 1850s still manage to look like the 1970s and the angry mob is more of a slightly irritated gathering. Everyone looks stoned and delivers their lines in half hearted monotones, eyes glazed and faces expressionless. And Jody has got to be the stupidest kid yet to appear on screen. He hangs around even though he's clearly not wanted and continues to hang around even after things begin to get menacing. Not even the sight of Gramma-Sister eviscerating a cop with a scythe can scare him away for long. No, he's too much in love with Melissa, a drab farmgirl with minimal beauty whose claims of Witchy-ness cannot penetrate Jody's thick skull and sound any sort of alarm bells. And who the hell are those people that Melissa is living with? They're not her parents, but they're in on the Dreadful Truth, so what gives? This is just one of the many glaring plot holes that litter this lackluster film. Not even the horrific murders and the fiery finale could keep me from nodding off. This movie just kind of plods along like a cinematic sedative until it finally peters out and ends with no fanfare whatsoever. Guaranteed to cure insomnia.
Martin Edelius
We follow Jodie, a guy, but with a name like that he's exactly the kind of wuss you expect him to be, driving way out to the country to eat his ham sandwich.He then stumbles upon Melissa who lives on the walnut farm (yep, you read that right) he stopped at. Besides a psycho grandma, Melissa has another dark secret that Jodie slowly, and I mean SLOWLY, unravels.Without the help of MST3k this movie would be a total pain in the royal behind. The pacing is slower than flowing tar on the North Pole, the dialog is unbelievably campy and dull and the acting is just plain crap.I'm not going to call this a turkey because the whole thing is not even funny bad, it's just bad bad. If you like boring, long-winded, trying-to-be-scary-but-just-stupid movies from the seventies, go ahead and watch this.If you do, I recommend you watch the MST3k version though.
tfrizzell
A young man (Michael Berry) on a cross-country trip to California stops one day to have a little lunch and meets a beautiful but highly suspicious farm girl (Emby Mellay) in "The Touch of Satan", one of the very worst movies ever put on celluloid. Naturally Mellay is not what she seems, she is really a 120-year-old witch who sold her soul to save her sister as she was being burned at the stake by an angry mob that believed she herself was a witch. Mellay makes a deal with Satan to save her sister, but pays her soul in return. Rumors around the spooky town come up and the suspense builds for Berry, but in the end will he try to destroy the curse or will he lose his soul as his love (or lust really) grows for Mellay? Whacked situations, a squeaky soundtrack, sophomoric performances, bargain-basement visual effects and a crummy script make this production one you should avoid unless you like those movies with camp value. I don't. Turkey (0 stars out of 5).
AD
