Nastassja Kinski

(In French, On Cable TV, April 2022) As far as Satanist movies go, To the Devil a Daughter is mediocre fare – playing with familiar elements with an intriguing cast, but not going any further and feeling incongruous when it does finally take it to a gorier level. Known as the last of the “original” run of Hammer Studio films, it features studio mascot Christopher Lee as an evil excommunicated priest with dark designs on a teenager raised to be part of occult rites. Lee is formidable enough, but the film also features Richard Widmark (add this one to the filmography of Classic Hollywood stars slumming it in 1970s horror films) as a heroic writer/protagonist, and Nastassja Kinski young enough to make her nude scenes reprehensible and perhaps more horrifying than the rest of the film put together. Much of To the Devil a Daughter progresses at a very tepid pace, with endless exposition keeping the film from going where it wants to go. By the time the noticeably gorier and more upsetting climax rolls around, it’s too late to save the film – it just feels atonal, misguided and exploitative. You can watch it for Lee, but he has done better in many other films.