Sadly Over-hyped

Best movie ever!

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

"The daemons are, the daemons were, & the daemons shall be again! They came & we are here. They sleep & we watch for them. They shall sleep, & we shall die, but we shall return through them! We are their dreams, & they shall awaken! Hail to the Ancient Dreams!"The Satanic Rituals, Anton Szandor LaVey....And so begins The Devil's Ecstasy, in a ritual chamber, amidst fog & candles, the black altar, upon which rests the "sacrifice" - a corrupted maiden, robed participants, & Marion Adaire, Satan's Priestess-Witch, who reads from the mystical Book of Shadows.Unlike most films of its kind, The Devil's Ecstasy manages to combine Horror & Porn with an actual plot, but unfortunately, mediocre actors.The Devil's Ecstasy is about a witch who lures unsuspecting male & female victims to her mansion, which used to be a church of 'god', but has since been transformed into a 'church of the devil', where she pleasures herself with them, then ceremoniously sacrifices them.I found this movie to be humorous, & very entertaining. Baphomet oversees the debaucheries & sacrifices, although crowned with backwards horns.The inheritress of the mansion is charmed by the witch, & they have their escapade. She is later invited downstairs to meet her relatives, who turn out to be zombies in cheesy make-up - they should have taken tips from King Diamond! Then she's sacrificed, & resurrected to be a member of the coven of the horny phallus.A particularly annoying inconsistency is at the very end, when the two 'witches' salute each other with the cornu, & say, "blessed be!" in an attempted diabolical tone. Although the saying is everything but, as it is used by the fluffy weaker bunnies in their ring-around-the-rosy romps.One of the actors needs to improve on his aim, which makes for a hilarious scene. Most of the actors & actresses are attractive, for that time {the 70's}, but the initial coitus is rather rudimentary. The more interesting aspects are in the surroundings, & the dialogue.

Curious hybrid of horror and hardcore doesn't really work on either level but is still an honorable experiment. Beautiful redhead coed Cyndee Summers (even in hooker undies and too much makeup) visits her ancestral family farm and strange things happen. How come everybody at the party looks *dead*? Who is the naked wild girl who looks just like Cyn (and is also a dead ringer for the Bonnie Raitt of the early 70s; wow)? What is the story with Cyndee's aunt (a hardly-the-type for porn films if you ever saw one)? Maybe Cyn's b.f. and favorite prof from school should take a spin out to the farm and see if everything is OK.The horror elements are extremely low budget. The sex scenes are very few and tend to the tame side, with considerable insert footage, though Summers appears to be doing her own stunt work in the closeups. There is some real suspense in waiting to find out if the (highly) unlikely aunt is going to put out or not. The mix of pseudo-Lovecraft Gothic with XXX is not smooth, and the film's heat and chill levels both stay low. This will not satisfy either the horror fan or the quester in search of le cinema bleu, though it might be relatively stimulating to a Trappist monk whose satellite dish can't get Cinemax or even MTV.Basically this is an unsuccessful experiment from the days when no one really knew where sexually explicit cinema was going and stabs were made in many directions to see where the blood flowed thickest.