The daughters of Satan

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title The daughters of Satan
Original title Daughters Of Satan
Country of production USA
Philippines
original language English
Publishing year 1972
length 87 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Hollingsworth Morse
script John A. Bushelman
John C. Higgins
production Vicente Nayve
Aubrey Schenck
music Richard LaSalle
camera Nonong Rasca
occupation

The Daughters of Satan is an American / Filipino thriller and horror film from 1972. The male lead is played by Tom Selleck , who was still little known at the time .

An art dealer buys a painting with the motif of a witch burning from a second-hand dealer, fascinated by the sight that one of the witches depicted on it looks amazingly similar to his wife. The three “witches” soon begin to “disappear” from the picture, guided by a sect of Satan to influence the will of those people whom they look like in real life. Your mission is to bring about the art dealer's death.

action

The art dealer James Robertson accidentally discovers a picture with the motif of a witch burning in a small second-hand shop. What particularly catches his eye is that the “witch” in the middle of the pyre looks very similar to his wife Chris. Fascinated by this resemblance, James bought this painting as a gift to his wife.

Chris Robertson, who is still very unstable in her psyche because she has just been released from psychiatric treatment, is anything but enthusiastic about this painting for the time being. The motif of a witch burning alone cannot inspire her, much less the comparisons of her husband, who sees an image of herself in the depicted witch in the middle of the pyre. Nevertheless, it is possible for Chris, in a kind of trance , to name the historical background of the painting (“Living burning of members of the Duarte Association in 1592”).

The following night Chris can hear unfamiliar voices calling her name, in contrast to James trying to calm her down. The next day, Chris strokes a dog that has run up and whose name she is able to call "Nicodemus", although she had never seen the dog before. On the same day James discovers that on the painting that he had hung up in his study in the meantime, the dog, which was also tied to the stake, has "faded" significantly.

In response to an advertisement placed by James, Juana Rios, a new housekeeper, takes up her position at the Robertsons. When Chris realizes her resemblance to the witch to the right of "her likeness", she wants to revoke her employment, but Juana manages to pull Chris under her spell. She (Juana) hands her (Chris) a dagger with the hint to remind her (Chris) of her goal ! When James drives up in his car shortly afterwards, he is attacked by Nicodemus, the dog only lets go of him when the new housekeeper intervenes. As a result, James notes that in the painting, after the dog, the woman on the right “pales” at the stake.

When night falls, James sees two women in the garden by a campfire, but they suddenly "disappear". When James tries to check he is attacked by a group of men, who let him run back into the house unharmed.

James begins his own research the next day. First he looks for the address that Nicodemus wore on his collar. There he meets an undertaker who, however, directs him to the address of the second-hand dealer who once sold him the painting. When James leaves the undertaker, the film viewer realizes that a coffin with the inscription "James Robertson 1943 - 1972" has already been made! When James later enters the second-hand dealer's shop, he discovers that he was murdered with a dagger.

James goes to see psychiatrist Dr. Dangal, who once looked after his wife Chris. During the conversation between him (James Robertson) and Dr. Dangal unexpectedly steps into the conference room with Kity Dugan, a patient who appears very hysterical and speaks of her fear, guided by a foreign power to murder people. When she left the room, James lets Dr. Dangal know that he thinks he recognizes not only his own wife in the picture, but also his housekeeper and the patient who has just entered.

In the following scenes, Chris makes two attempts to murder her husband James:

  • During a picnic together on a boat dock, she holds the dagger she has taken with her in the picnic basket. Chris hesitates, however, and misses the crucial moment to happen.
  • At night, the housekeeper gives her a poison powder. While James sleeps in the double bed, Chris has the bedroom fogged with a suffocating gas. However, James manages to break a window in time.

Only in a further conversation at home with Dr. Dangal, James (and thus also the film viewer) is explained the connections with the incidents and the painting: According to Dr. Dangal those figures in the painting disappear or fade as soon as the person they embody in the real world is controlled by the forces of a supernatural power and thereby become a witch. According to Dr. Dangal there are people who try to hex his wife Chris and use it as a tool to destroy him (James).

Dr. Dangal then leaves the Robertson's house in his car late in the evening. Only shortly afterwards, James observes how all the figures “disappear” in the painting. When James goes to look, the real people, his wife and the housekeeper, are no longer in the house, and the dog kennel is also empty. During the return trip, Dr. Dangal his perception into his recording device, after which the silhouettes of three women are dancing along the street, followed by a large dog . A little later he dies in a car accident, observed at close range by his patient Kity Duarte. For the movie viewer it is now obvious that the three "witches" killed Dr. Dangal to answer for. When James checks on his wife one more time, she is sleeping in bed with noticeably dirty soles.

James meets with Kity Duarte at his invitation for a conversation. The former patient of the late psychiatrist shows him (James) another painting by the same painter. The motif of this picture shows the trial at which on December 16, 1592 the three "witches" were sentenced to death at the stake. James is horrified to discover that the depicted judge at the time is an image of himself. Kity lets James know that the convicts have since taken their revenge on him and on every other male descendant, the curse never being broken!

Chris attends a meeting of the Satan sect "Manila Community of Lucifer", at which she has to endure a torture sentence because of the two unsuccessful attempts to murder her husband and is forced to completely break away from the Christian faith. Now willing and docile, she has until midnight to “complete the mission that was entrusted to her” (to kill her husband).

The three “witches” take action together. James is knocked out with a sleeping pill in the drink. "Secured" with a block of ice under the tires, his vehicle, with the unconscious James at the steering wheel, is brought into position in front of a slope of a ravine, so that as soon as the ice melts and the vehicle begins to roll, it looks like a self-accident . In order to be able to show an “alibi” for themselves, the three women go to an inn. Exactly at midnight, however, his "existence as a witch" ends, so that none of the three knows why they came to the inn.

Chris goes home with no memory of the past hours. James does the same, who was able to leave his crashing vehicle just in time. The two are lovingly lying on the sofa when the witch in the middle (the likeness of Chris) disappears again in the painting. Chris, turned witch again, grabs the dagger and thrusts it into James' back.

Details about the film

  • The film was released in the United States in November 1972.
  • The film is set in the Philippines in the Manila region. The shooting took place directly at these locations.

Reviews

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Premiere dates on Internet Movie Database
  2. ↑ Filming locations on Internet Movie Database
  3. ↑ The Daughters of Satan. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used