Popular occult author Dennis Wheatley was so pleased with Hammer's 1968 movie version of his novel The Devil Rides Out that he happily agreed to them making further adaptations of his work, even going so far as to granting the rights for nothing. It was an offer that, eventually, the ailing studio could not afford to ignore.
Choosing to develop To The Devil A Daughter, however, was probably a bad decision: budgetary constraints meant that a faithful interpretation of Wheatley's book was impossible to achieve, and after much script wrangling, filming went ahead whilst further revisions were still being made.
To add to Hammer's problems, star Widmark was not a happy bunny on set, being displeased with the non-Hollywood film making process employed by director Peter Sykes and his crew.
However, despite all the problems, somehow, eventually, a finished product was delivered—only to suffer from some hasty re-editing when some bright spark commented that the original ending bore too much resemblance to that of an earlier Hammer movie, Scars of Dracula. With such a troubled production, To The Devil A Daughter is an understandably less than perfect film, but despite its flaws, it still proves to be an entertaining dose of Satanic nonsense.
Widmark plays John Verney, an American occult novelist who is approached by a strange man named Henry Beddows (Denholm Elliot), who claims to be involved with a cult named The Children of the Lord, led by the sinister Father Michael Rayner (Christopher Lee, in fine form). Intrigued, Verney agrees to pick up Beddows' daughter Catherine (Nastassja Kinski) from the airport and look after her until they can meet again. In reality, Beddows is trying to protect his daughter from Rayner, who selected the girl at birth for a ritual—scheduled to take place on her impending 18th birthday—that will see her becoming an avatar for the demon Astaroth.
With such a great cast (that also includes Honor Blackman), and Wheatley's well researched black magic mumbo jumbo forming the basis of the script, To The Devil A Daughter trundles along quite nicely for the majority of its running time, offering audiences plenty of fun devilish goings-on, including the nasty birth of a demon child (which exits via the abdomen), Blackman being stabbed in the neck with a metal comb, one poor character going up in flames, Lee terrorising a trembling Elliot over the phone, and the lovely Nastassja giving viewers an eyeful of her hot bod.
Unfortunately, the messy finalé (which sees Lee's character disappear mysteriously after receiving a bump on the head) does mean that the film closes on something of a bum note and admittedly cannot hold a (black) candle to the real Satanic hit of '76, The Omen, but it's also nowhere near as bad as some Hammer fans would have you believe.
6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.
Choosing to develop To The Devil A Daughter, however, was probably a bad decision: budgetary constraints meant that a faithful interpretation of Wheatley's book was impossible to achieve, and after much script wrangling, filming went ahead whilst further revisions were still being made.
To add to Hammer's problems, star Widmark was not a happy bunny on set, being displeased with the non-Hollywood film making process employed by director Peter Sykes and his crew.
However, despite all the problems, somehow, eventually, a finished product was delivered—only to suffer from some hasty re-editing when some bright spark commented that the original ending bore too much resemblance to that of an earlier Hammer movie, Scars of Dracula. With such a troubled production, To The Devil A Daughter is an understandably less than perfect film, but despite its flaws, it still proves to be an entertaining dose of Satanic nonsense.
Widmark plays John Verney, an American occult novelist who is approached by a strange man named Henry Beddows (Denholm Elliot), who claims to be involved with a cult named The Children of the Lord, led by the sinister Father Michael Rayner (Christopher Lee, in fine form). Intrigued, Verney agrees to pick up Beddows' daughter Catherine (Nastassja Kinski) from the airport and look after her until they can meet again. In reality, Beddows is trying to protect his daughter from Rayner, who selected the girl at birth for a ritual—scheduled to take place on her impending 18th birthday—that will see her becoming an avatar for the demon Astaroth.
With such a great cast (that also includes Honor Blackman), and Wheatley's well researched black magic mumbo jumbo forming the basis of the script, To The Devil A Daughter trundles along quite nicely for the majority of its running time, offering audiences plenty of fun devilish goings-on, including the nasty birth of a demon child (which exits via the abdomen), Blackman being stabbed in the neck with a metal comb, one poor character going up in flames, Lee terrorising a trembling Elliot over the phone, and the lovely Nastassja giving viewers an eyeful of her hot bod.
Unfortunately, the messy finalé (which sees Lee's character disappear mysteriously after receiving a bump on the head) does mean that the film closes on something of a bum note and admittedly cannot hold a (black) candle to the real Satanic hit of '76, The Omen, but it's also nowhere near as bad as some Hammer fans would have you believe.
6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.