Who payed the critics

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Finally, a film that knows what it's audience wants! I went into this picture back in '78 when it was released and it was mere minutes after entering that I was walking right back out the theatre doors, and not in a security guards arms either. Here's how it happened, I was in my seat just as the film was starting and it began with some old man in a cloak and some candles or something, I don't really know because I was focusing on taking my pants off without the usher noticing. Then bam! Right on the screen a naked woman is tied to a table with her sweater-hogs hanging right out! Then the old dude starts groping her, and just when I thought it couldn't get any better that cinematic genius, Carlos Puerto, gave the audience a close- up of her smooth naked "cat". Instantly gratified I finished all over the seat in front of me and made my way for the lobby where I ate 5 bags of candy corn then went home to sleep. I would have stayed for the rest of the film, but with an intro that spectacular there's no way they could have topped it. In the end I only have three words to say about Satan's Blood: What. A. Masterpiece.

Not sure how, but it slipped my mind that I'd seen this before, though it started coming back to me as I was watching.After an opening scene of a black mass, Andy and his four months pregnant wife Ana (who shows no visible signs of being pregnant) are out for a drive with their dog Blackie, when they come across a couple in another car who claims to know Andy. He doesn't remember the guy from school, and thinks some of the other things the man says are wrong (Last Year in Marienbad?), but they agree to join them for a drink at their house. The dog doesn't like the couple, and Andy has second thoughts when the drive to the house turns out to be over an hour over dirt roads in the middle of nowhere, but they do enter the couple's large gated estate. Once there, various things conspire against them leaving....Really well made sleaze/satanic horror. As is said in the novel The Crying of Lot 49, "True pornography is given us by vastly patient professionals."The documentary on satanism and satanic horror included on Mondo Macabro's DVD is well worth watching.

SATAN'S BLOOD is a decent slice of obscure Spanish sexploitation. Tons of nudity (including plenty o' full-frontal) and a bit o' gore (and a relatively swift run-time) and a few actually creep scenes make SATAN'S BLOOD a pretty solid entry of 70's Euro-sleaze...A young couple is chillin' around town with their dog when another couple stops them and invites them back to their crib. The husband of the "approaching" couple claims to have known the husband of the "chillin'" couple from back in college - but this "friendship" is totally lost on chill-guy - he's drawin' a complete blank and doesn't recall the guy at all. Regardless - both couples head back to the other couple's house (which turns out to be a castle-like mansion in the middle of nowhere...) and before ya know it - their playin' with Ouija boards and partaking in Satanic orgies. The chill couple is freaked by the whole thing and wants to leave, but various "obstacles" prevent their escape...Although there are a few brief atmospheric and creepy scenes (a few in particular involving a bugged-out looking porcelain doll...) - SATAN'S BLOOD is pretty much just a fun, sleazy, Satanic sexploiter that should satisfy fans of cheezy violence and gratuitous nudity. Nothing extremely notable about the film, but a fun way to kill some time, and the film clocks in right around 70 minutes or so - so it's not boring or too drawn-out. Decent end scene, too...7/10

With Franco dead the Spanish could let rip and this one certainly goes at a pace. There are many sex and Satanism films that barely get round to either sex or Satanism, this one revels in it throughout. Just when it gets a bit silly towards the end, it gets very silly and builds to a great finale. In fact much of the film is really good, as well as almost constant bare flesh from the ladies and the gents there is blood and gore AND a really creepy atmosphere aided by the strange antics of the main protagonists. Whenever we see them in the deserted kitchen they seem bent over some dog bowl, and when they are in bed together they growl and pair like two animals. Granted an 'S' for sex certificate upon it's Spanish release and it certainly deserves it, though it also deserves a 'V' for violence and 'G' for gore. Excellent stuff - and not over long!