DAUGHTERS OF SATAN (1972) Art dealer Tom Selleck becomes obsessed with a 17th century painting that features a witch who Iooks exactly like his wife (Barra Grant). Subsequent strange incidents propel him to investigate the painting’s provenance, leading him to a funeral home in Manila that’s a front for a coven occupied by the descendants of the original Satanic members burned alive by Selleck’s Catholic conquistador ancestor—and they want revenge. Persuaded by the coven’s new leader (Tani Guthrie) to help dispose of her husband, Grant immediately loses sympathy with the viewer by allowing her spouse to die at the hands of people she just met and under the most ridiculous of reasons. Satan wins in the end as Grant is consumed with evil and executes her fate in one of the most anti-climactic endings in ho-hum horror history. A pre-Magnum P.I. Selleck is the only noteworthy thing about this shot-in-the-Phillippines sludge fest.
MADNESS (1980) Andy Warhol muse Joe Dallesandro stars as a thug (big stretch) who escapes from prison and flees to a remote country house where he stashed stolen money years earlier. Retrieving the cash proves difficult when he finds the place being used by a trio of sex-starved vacationers. In what becomes the umpteenth retelling of Straw Dogs (1971), Last House on the Left (1972), House by the Lake (1976), and other fight-to-the-death scenarios, Dallesandro commits rape, brutality, and murder before the last woman standing arms herself with a shotgun and gives him a taste of his own medicine. Only copious amounts of nudity—the uncensored version contains a fair amount of male skin—will keep you interested in an otherwise routine Italian exploitation vehicle.
PSYCHO III (1986) Norman Bates is once again talking to dear dead Mommy and cutting up any pretty young thing who happens by the Bates Motel. Norman (Anthony Perkins) slips on the proverbial dress and wig after being triggered by the arrival of Marion Crane lookalike, Maureen (Diana Scarwid), a suicidal ex-nun Norman inadvertently saves from herself. Temptation and lust bring out the kitchen knife as Norman goes about slashing his way through the female population of Bates country—several woman are slashed and stabbed in more ways than one, including a helpless victim relieving herself on the toilet. Norman’s broken mind is explored more than in the previous Psychos, with the screenplay (written by Charles Edward Pogue) taking care to never turn him into a caricature. Perkins also directed Psycho III and infuses the film with homages to Hitchcock, Dario Argento, Ken Russell, and Mario Bava. The cast is good, especially Perkins and Jeff Fahey as a sleazy traveler who stumbles upon Norman’s secret. A thoughtful, suspenseful, and misunderstood sequel that deserves a second (or third) look.
