Wow! Such a good movie.

Don't Believe the Hype

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I read in the IMDb trivia that this film originally was meant as a knockoff of "The Exorcist" and it was re-edited in order, apparently, to avoid legal difficulties. However, in its final form it bears little similarity to "The Exorcist"...or a movie! Instead, it all seems very randomly edited and pointless. And, occasionally, nudity is tossed into the mix but it manages to be very unsexy and even rather silly.The film begins with a hilariously bad choreographed dance scene that looks like it belongs in the John Travolta film "Staying Alive". Then, abruptly, the film switches to an annoying child (Daria) and her mother. It seems that years before the mother was part of a coven and now Daria is becoming a nasty little demonic child. Why? Who knows. All I know is that the actress acted really nasty through much of the film until she ultimately tore off all her clothes at the end--which is very disturbing since she was a pubescent girl--and too young legally to do such explicit stuff in the States. Perhaps Italian laws were more liberal. But this part, if it's possible, makes even LESS sense than the rest of the film and it ends.To say that the film made little sense, was completely amateurish and was stupid would probably be a major understatement. The film is without merit--heck, even the nudity is pretty dull (except for those hoping to see some not-yet legal nudity). A despicable and dumb film with nothing to recommend it. Even for camp value it's pretty worthless.

Satan's Wife (1979)* 1/2 (out of 4) If it's from Italy and features "Satan" or "devil" in the title then you know it must be a rip-off of THE EXORCIST or ROSEMARY'S BABY but here we're in for a treat as this one rips both of those classics. A mother (Anne Heywood) begins to notice something wrong with her teen daughter (Lara Wendel) and sure enough Lucifer (Ezio Miani) is after the young one. Turns out that mommy and two of her friends made a deal with the evil red one years earlier and now he's taking it out on their children but a priest (John Phillip Law) agrees to try and defeat him. I'm really not sure what the point of this film was as it goes off in several directions and in the end it never really seems to know what it wants to do. Apparently this thing sat on the shelf for two years before getting released and you'll see why when you sit through it. The biggest problem is that the film starts off with your typical possession stuff but it does very little with it. There's non-stop nudity to add into the sleaze factor but there's very little else in terms of entertainment. The possession stuff is all mild, any back story is boring and it doesn't help that the film jumps around from one character to another. The cast will feature some familiar faces including previous Oscar-nominees Ian Bannen, Valentina Cortese and Frank Finlay. Wendel will probably be best remembered for a memorable death scene in Argento's TENEBRE but her performance here is pretty weak. The incredibly bad dialogue doesn't help matters nor does her nude scenes and if the DOB on the IMDb is correct then many will want to avoid this film at all costs. Heywood doesn't do any better as she's all over the place and looks confused at what she should do in a film like this. Cult favorite John Phillip Law doesn't get that good of a role either so he's wasted as well. THE EXORCIST-rip should be a genre onto its own as we have dozens and dozens of films that would fall into it but this one here is certainly one of the lesser entries. The film does start off with a near musical number that will have your eyes coming through your skull but things go downhill from there. There's enough nudity that might make Euro-sleaze folks tune in but it's not enough to keep the film moving.

After the release of The Exorcist in 1973; ripping that film off became so popular in Italy that "the Exorcist rip off" almost became a genre. It turns out that Italian filmmakers were still at it six years later and Rings of Darkness is one of the later rip offs. It seems that director Pier Carpi was not happy just to rip off William Friedkin's film, however, and this one also features elements from other Satanic classics such as The Omen and Rosemary's Baby. I have to give the film some credit actually for the plot, as it does feature one of the more interesting ones; although it is rather messy. The basic plot focuses on three women that made a deal with the Devil. However, the Devil has decided to target their young daughters instead; prompting the women to fight back against their master. Unfortunately, it has to be said that this film is something of a missed opportunity and nowhere near as good as it could have been. The atmosphere is really rather good, and while the music is a bit too over the top at times; it does work well. The plot soon becomes indecipherable, however, and unfortunately this means that the film quickly becomes boring. In my experience, most of the Exorcist rip off's are rubbish and this isn't one of the better ones. I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to find a copy.

Warning,contains spoilers!This is one of the best Italian sleaze films I've seen.The plot has a teenage girl who is interested of occultism and has supernatural powers.Her mother is a member of satanist group and is afraid what influences it'll have on the girl.No need to worry, the girl knows just what to do and there's no return,she belongs to Satan..During the film odd things happen in typical italo way,there's not too much logic,but that's only good thing.It's amazing how entertaining these films are.. On the final battle we see her and her mother fighting each other (nude off course) and doing some mysterious rituals,you might guess who wins... The films final pictures leaves your mouth open and wandering why can't there be more films like this?There's superb music through the whole film and the actors are quite good,better than usual in these type of films.Specially Anne Heywood looks and acts good.It also has some unusual camera angles and stuff like that, so it's not boring at all.My rating is 10.Hopefully someone releases this on dvd.