This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Purely Joyful Movie!

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

In the Spanish countryside, sisters Marta and Veronica run a small hotel. They also murder any guest who doesn't live up to their strict, fundamentalist moral code. Because God. Didn't he also say something about not killing? Well, whatever.The film is available in different versions, running between 67 and 120 minutes. I have the 67-minute version, and boy does it feel cut! Scenes just stop, characters react to nothing, there's no blood and gore to speak of…. And what's left is rather dull and not at all original: the murdered guests end up on the hotel's menu, their remains are stashed in wine vats in the cellar, and one of the obnoxiously religious sisters is sexually involved with the hotel's handsome young caretaker. Certain characters' motives and actions are never explained either, though that may be due to the chainsaw- like editing job.Though marketed as a horror film, it's neither scary nor suspenseful. There's nothing to keep us guessing, as we know from the start exactly who is killing those young women. The acting is passable but, as often happens with these low-budget productions, the dubbing stinks.Unlike the most watchable Eurotrash, this film is nowhere near sleazy or exploitative enough to hold a viewer's interest. I'm glad I only subjected myself to 67 minutes of it.

Uptight Marta (Aurora Bautista) is in a dilemma. Fresh faced Laura Barkley (Judy Geeson) has arrived to stay and only minutes earlier, Marta had caused the death of her sister. Marta's own sister, the much less puritanical Veronica (Esperanza Roy) has been stealing money from the safe and carrying on with young general help Eduardo (Víctor Alcázar).Despite being fairly central to the plot, Laura doesn't feature as much as you might expect. Her new friend, obnoxious Helen (Lone Fleming) is the next one to be despatched. With people dropping like flies around her, Laura's suspicions grow.Initially, I sympathised with Marta's thinking – the character of Helen for example wasn't so much sexually provocative, but a thoroughly obnoxious character. Whilst her fate was abhorrent, she was advised several times to leave the hotel and was aggressively petulant in her defiance. As time goes on, however, Marta either becomes more twisted, or the depths of her instability becomes more and more pronounced to the viewer. This is demonstrated never more pleasingly when 'the eye of a young woman' is found staring out of someone's hotel dinner. Although, considering the film's title is 'Candle for the Devil', these events are a little small-time; I expected something a little more demonic.The story ends on an uncertain note. Either the sisters' deadly exploits are about to be exposed to the mad-eyed authorities, or the whole town is in on it. Revelling in the kind of intrigue that made 'Psycho (1960)' such a huge success, 'A Candle for the Devil' seems under-developed. It would have been more satisfying had it been made clearer if the entire district condoned, or was involved in the cover-up of, Marta's blatantly murderous actions.

Two nutty sisters run a pension near Madrid. Folks keep disappearing from the place and ultimately you learn that they are killing the 'morally unfit'--and sooner or later, that seems to include just about everybody! One women (Judy Geeson) arrives to meet her sister and demands to know what has become of her. And, in the course of staying there, she starts to notice that OTHER residents are disappearing.When I read lazarillo's review of this film, it was very, very helpful. Because of this review, I realize that I saw a heavily edited version--very heavily edited. It lacked the nudity and violence of the longer version--and much more. At only 68 minutes, the version I saw was ridiculously truncated. So be aware that my review is only for the short version.Another way that I appreciated lazarillo's review is their interpretation of the symbolism of the film. It was filmed in Spain two years before the death of Franco and the film seems to have slipped past the censors. This is because the criticism of the moralistic sisters could EASILY be seen as a criticism of the rigid government as well--and why it wasn't seen that way is a good question. So, when the ultra-moralistic sister takes her hatred of the promiscuous to an extreme (by killing her 'sinful' tenants), this insane behavior seems to be a criticism of the state of Spanish society at the time.So is the film worth while? Yes, but the solution to the puzzle seemed VERY obvious and there was no suspense for the viewer since the sisters are seen killing one of the residents early on in the film. I also wish I'd seen the full version--not for the nudity but just to see what the filmmakers' artistic vision was. In other words, how much of what they intended us to see just ended up on the cutting room floor? Recommended...but with reservations.

"It Happened at Nightmare Inn" aired 4 times on Pittsburgh's CHILLER THEATER, the first on March 24 1979, although Bill "Chilly Billy" Cardille initially gave the title as "Nightmare Hotel" (further airings during the 80's actually cut off the title). Some sources list the copyright as 1970, but the European cut running 83 minutes (titled "A Candle for the Devil") specifies 1973, which for actress Judy Geeson puts this right in between 1972's "Fear in the Night" (with Peter Cushing) and 1974's "Diagnosis: Murder" (with Christopher Lee). Geeson's top billed character takes a necessary back seat to the two sisters, played by 48 year old Aurora Bautista and 38 year old Esperanza Roy, who run an inn in a rural section of Spain in a morally agitated state. While Aurora, the epitome of steely, cold hearted hypocrisy, bitterly remembers how her husband-to-be abandoned her at the altar for a younger woman, the mild mannered Esperanza, easily dominated by her older sibling, carries on a secret love affair with their young handyman, each displaying full frontal nudity in their bedroom scenes. Unfortunately, all pretty young women staying at the inn are frowned upon as scandalous whores, and are quickly dispatched by the sisters (even the divorced mother, cruelly stabbed in the back as she tries to save her baby). The real busybody of the village is named Beatriz, who tells Aurora that the young mother doesn't know who the father is, when the audience clearly heard the girl say she didn't know WHERE he is. Fortunately, the evidence that reveals the gruesome truth about the psychotic pair makes Beatriz quite ill (they foolishly stashed the corpses in a wine vat). The butchered TV print ran about 70 minutes, minus the abundant nudity and much of the blood (there's even a sequence which would never be shot now in these politically correct times, with Aurura spying on preteen boys swimming naked). Speaking of naked, Esperanza Roy was described as a "near old age pensioner" by another reviewer, but this commentator was duly impressed by her 38 year old assets (the lads today would describe her as a MILF). Just another fringe benefit of seeing a beloved CHILLER THEATER classic in all its frank, uncut glory, now available through Sinister Cinema.