John Russo, writer of the screenplay for Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and author of several pulp horror novels in the late seventies and early eighties, directed this z-grade, no-budget snoozefest from his original novel.

I read the novel when it first came out in the late seventies and actually enjoyed it.  I remember being blown away by the ending of the book which had the incestuous stepfather actually track his missing stepdaughter down only to leave her in the clutches of the Satanists to ensure that she didn’t rat on him for his attempted rapes.  At the time I thought it was a breath of fresh air and pretty brave to end a book on such a downbeat note.  Alas, no such luck with the film as the ending was changed to reflect a typical American happy ending.

Nancy is the teenaged daughter who runs away rather than let her alcoholic policeman stepfather molest her.  She is picked up by two teenaged boys going to Florida and the three commence their travels, shoplifting and camping as they travel southward.  They are eventually caught by a family of Satanists posing as policemen.  The two boys are killed while Nancy is brought to the family’s house and caged like an animal, along with a second girl who had been previously captured.  The Satanists want to sacrifice three girls at midnight each night beginning on Good Friday and continuing through Easter Sunday, allowing their mummified mother to drink the blood which they believe will bring her back to life.

As I already mentioned, in the novel the stepfather, having tracked Nancy down, chooses to leave her to her fate in order to cover up his actions.  But in this typical slasher film, the stepfather (played by Lawrence Tierney, the only “name” in the film) tracks Nancy down and dies trying to save her.  But he does enough damage to the group of Satanists that Nancy is eventually able to escape and end this terrible film.

Featuring special effects by Tom Savini, and produced and distributed by the inimitable Sam Sherman of Independent International Films fame, at least on paper you have a solid little film.  Sam Sherman himself is involved; the film is written and directed by the living dead man himself, John Russo; effects by superstar Savini; and even a veteran character actor like Tierney to lend the film a bit of legitimacy.  But sometimes what’s on paper doesn’t translate well to celluloid.

The film itself looks dirt cheap and very seedy, which in this case isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  The script doesn’t have a good deal of action and as a result, the film just plods along at a snail’s pace.  The acting is amateurish at best with even Tierney just barely going through the motions (although at the end he summons enough energy to break into his stereotypical gangster schtick, foreshadowing his role in Reservoir Dogs by a decade).

The Satanists don’t succeed in being scary or intimidating; they are merely annoying.  One actor plays a lumbering, ox-like mental defect that cackles incessantly while one actress insists on delivering her lines like she’s in a stage production of a Shakespeare tragedy.

Speaking of annoying, the theme song is a sappy, sweet song with corny lyrics that is repeated over and over until it makes the viewer nauseous.  In fact, about the only thing to watch this film for is Savini’s effects, but even they are relegated to a few pedestrian stabbings and throat slittings that are filmed at a distance and with such poor lighting as to render them ineffective as well.

It seems Russo has tried to pull all the stops out with this film:  he has a mummified mother much like Psycho, a remote farmhouse where Nancy is trapped much like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and even a lumbering and seemingly mute killer modeled after Leatherface.  Unfortunately, none of these things translates as well as they did for Hitchcock and Hooper.

Overall, this film doesn’t have much to offer—not even some unintentional humor to at least liven the proceedings.  This was a waste of 90 minutes that I’ll never get back and certainly not worth the time or the effort, much less a rental fee.  Stay away from this stinker!