Slashers, witches, Satanism, ghosts…I really thought there would be something to like here. But this triple feature was a disappointment.
SATAN’S SERVANT (2021)
This film is touted as being made by high school students, so if you’re going into it, keep that firmly in mind.
Overall it’s a silly little film filled with way too much exposition in the first hour. At least it finally pays off in the last half hour with some low budget slasher action…all wrapped up in a satanic ritual plot.
After a high school girl disappears in an opening home invasion scene, four friends become convinced she’s been kidnapped as part of a satanic sacrifice plot in their own neighborhood.
The whole film revolves around them trying to break her free from a house while being chased by a guy in a ski mask.
This definitely feels like an amateur production. You decide if it’s worth it for the fairly entertaining hack ‘n’ slash sequence at the end.
THE DEMENTED (2021)
This movie is just so not my thing. The general concept is interesting for a horror movie—women lured into a sex trafficking/snuff film ring get revenge from beyond the grave.
Unfortunately, a majority of this film involves one man in a mask tormenting one woman tied up and squirming in a bed while begging for her life.
Other elements of the film include horror queen Felissa Rose as a detective doing some interrogation, and the “ghosts” of the previous victims communicating with the current victim.
Problem for me was that the exploitation of the one woman by the man takes away all sense of this being a movie; it starts to feel like nothing more than jerk-off material for right wing incel nutbags.
A DEADLY LEGEND (2020)
This is how you top off a bad Prime marathon. Not even appearances by Judd Hirsch, Corbin Bernsen, and Lori Petty can help this sloppy mess of a witchcraft/ghost story/slasher mashup.
There’s land with a cursed past that has been sold. Judd Hirsch is the crazy old man warning everyone that developing on it is a mistake.
Corbin Bernsen runs a new age shop and also has a vested interest in what becomes of the land. Lori Petty works with a construction crew digging on the property.
Beyond that, I had no idea what was going on. There were a whole lot of people staying at a place on the land, but I wasn’t quite sure who they all were or how they all knew each other.
Apparently a bunch of girls unleash something by having a séance. The construction workers also seem to unleash something while digging. The ghost girl roams around trying to be scary. One of the main girls seems to get possessed by a warrior witch.
One of the construction workers gets possessed and stalks everyone with a pick axe. This kind of disjointed nonsense works in 80s euro horror, but it didn’t work here. This is an uninspired, scare-free, gore-free disaster with no clear plot.
