A Candle For The Devil

geurilla pen

at 4:43 am

A very strange, dark and brooding film somewhat in the style of some of Pete Walkers offerings from the same period. Two sisters running a Spanish boarding house begin offing various nubile female, predominately English occupiers who have run foul of said hosts religious moral code. In truth it is one sister in particular, the other sister being weak willed and dominated by her puritannical sibling is coerced into going along with her wishes whilst herself partial to a bit of casual hanky-panky with the hotel handyman albeit terrified of her sibling finding out.

Judy Geeson is the sister of one of the ‘disappeared’ and soon notices a disturbing trend of young gals disapearing without warning and sets out to investigate further. It is all really well done. There isn’t any great master plan, the killings just kind of happen, first by accident then it all seems to spiral out of control a bit though the underlying feeling is that the elder more sinister sister is certainly starting to get a charge out of carrying out ‘God’s work’ in this form.

There are some great scenes. The elder sister after observing naked frolicking in the river runs through a thorny field as a form of self-flagellation, punishing herself whilst also enjoying the pain and feel of the thorns tearing her body. There is no real gore, but there is quite a bit of semi-nudeness and a nice little story underpinning it all. Most of the Spanish actors are dubbed English, the picture is a bit dark and grainy but it is a very interesting atmospheric romp. The only extras on the disc at this time are a series of previews of a number of similar 70’s low budget films.
Rating: 4 / 5

nussbaum22

at 7:49 am

“A candle for the devil” is a very interesting sexploitation. It could be called “Inn of blood”. Young shameless girls are killed by the two female owners of an inn. Plenty of nudity mixed with bloody murders… Judy Geeson looks like always very beautifull ! Love her very much. Very sensitive in her acting. The last scene shows all her fragility ! The print is quite good. If you like this kind of stuff, buy this movie ! A little classic from the good old sexploitation times !
Rating: 5 / 5