not as good as all the hype

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Director Ulli Lommel co-writes this tale of a witch hunt in the Colonial town of Devonsville, with a history of executing three local women on accusation of witchcraft. A new school teacher and two other liberated and progressive young women arrive in town about the same time. Their arrival ignites memories of over zealous vigilantes with pitchforks and three gruesome executions. Paranoia catches like wildfire and hysterical townsfolk flirt with a more modern witch hunt. Dr. Warley(Donald Pleasence), a local historian conjugates an old witch's curse as he compares current mores with the past. Other players: Suzanna Love, Deanna Haas, Robert Walker Jr. and Mary Walden. This movie is not that hard to like; it just doesn't build very much excitement.

I watched this film completely sober, which is never a great idea when you're watching low-budget horror films. But this one was alright. The plot was firmly established, the death scenes were obviously amateur but at least creative in their methods. And Donald Pleasance, who can really do no wrong (I watched this film about a week after seeing "Alone in the Dark" - I should have made it a double feature). Other critics of this film might say it is not original. Maybe so, but the director and the actors were able to establish a "creepy level" unparalleled in any other film. Almost every two minutes some character acted in a way that weirded me out. What was made into a 90-minute film should have been a Twin Peaks-esque television show. The only thing really missing in this film is a woman talking to a log. Were there plot holes and other flaws? Sure. The laser beams from the eyes were a bit unusual, and the weekly meetings with the drunk priest, and the unexplained need for hypnotized people to be naked, and the obvious fact the wormy arm was not a real arm... but I digress. A fine film ion its own right - 6 out of 10.

Watching this movie a second time was very feasible. I understood the plot more better and I liked the movie better as well. If you really watch and pay attention to the movie, you will see that it has a strong plot that makes since. I think people don't like this movie because it was hardly any gore and it was kind of slow moving, but again, just pay attention to the plot it is a good move. *** 1/2 out of *****

One of the biggest problems I have with this film - apart from the fact that it actually exists - is that, in the hands of finer craftsmen and with a stronger budget, it could have been quite good. The premise, while familiar, could have been put to good effect: an accused witch's curse comes back to haunt the people of a small New England hamlet 300 years after she was wrongfully burnt at the stake. Ultimately however, 'The Devonsville Terror' just lays down and dies quite quickly, offering no suspense or horror whatsoever outside of a cheap play at being a bad exploitation film here and there (at the beginning and again at the end, where almost the same things happen) with a minorly repulsive 'shock' somewhere in the middle. The film is so cheap the producers don't seem to have even been able to afford to pay more than one of the female actors to go topless, blowing the budget instead on pulling unconvincing maggot stunts and a laughable torn by dogs sequence, stealing the melting head scene from 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', having a ghostly, horribly burnt face with a full head of hair float around and making the heroine shoot laser beams out of her eyes! An unintentional murder apparently releases the vengeful spirits of three women brutalised hundreds of years before; the superstituous, horribly-cliched small town hicks naturally think the spirits have taken possession of three female outsiders: a radio broadcaster, an environmentalist and the newly-appointed school teacher who hitch-hikes into town and falls foul of the townsfolk by telling her pupils that the Babylonian chief god was a woman. Eventually, after some extended film time where nothing very interesting happens, the locals decide to do them in. All the while the village doctor is trying to purge Devonsville of its curse by exposing his patients to seemingly meaningless hypnotherapy that exists only to allow more lame scenes of women being victimised. Apart from a rather nasty scene where one poor girl is dragged to death behind a pick-up, it would all be quite appalling if it wasn't so half-baked. Because it is, it's appalling for very different reasons.