SATANWAR (1979) Reviews of so-bad-it’s-good trash

  

satanwar satan war VHS

Satanwar is a 1979 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Bart LaRue. Promoted as Satan War 

The movie stars Sally Sehermerhorn, Jimmy Drankovitch, Jane August, Reggie De Morton, Michelene Alexander and The Elaine Thompson Dancers.

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Newlyweds Bill and Louise Foster move into the house of their dreams but it quickly becomes a nightmare. Goop oozes out of cabinets and coffee pots, little earthquakes keep happening, things go bump in the night, kitchen chairs keep running into Louise, and, worst of all, their crucifix keeps slowly inverting itself over and over on their wall…

satanwar inverted cross

Reviews:

“The first hour is slow, repetitive and deadly dull in its familiarity. Aside from one brief scene, it’s all filmed in one house. There are a hundred shots of the crucifix on the wall, dozens of the coffee pot and long scenes of the characters cleaning up messes and walking around. As for the actors, they all appear to have been dubbed in post and are terrible enough to provide a few chuckles here and there … The synthesizer music score sounds like an annoying ambulance siren and it never seems to stop.”  The Bloody Pit of Horror

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“It’s Amityville Horror in a small home on a Los Angeles street. And, it is very deliberate. Just two people, most of the time. The same five or so minutes of music play constantly. All the dialog is dubbed. It is one of those films that finds a very strange, almost Night of Horror groove, and then milks it for an hour. In fact, when stuff actually happens in the final ten minutes, it’s kind of scary. Mainly because you didn’t expect anything to actually occur.” Dan Budnik, Bleeding Skull!

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” … a sublimely inept attempt at an Amityville Horror rip-off, a 76-minute movie with approximately an hour of plot, followed by a 15-minute Mondo-style presentation on the satanic elements of voodoo. The film proper is introduced with narration explaining that Satan’s demons target not just the general population, but Christians as well. This is demonstrated through the sad “true” tale of Bill and Louise Foster, whose new home is so ghastly — I leave the kitchen wallpaper to your imagination — that haunting seems redundant.” Mondo 70

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” …if you’re into boring, droning music drowning out actors, spinning crosses and bad acting/direction, then you should spend the time necessary finding this film.  If not, you should leave Bill and Louise with the ghosts or the boogeymen or something, and save your time and money on this one.” Internal Bleeding

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