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Seven Women For Satan
[Mondo Macabro]
1974; color
Directed by Michel Lemoine
Starring: Michel Lemoine, Joelle Coeur, Nathalie Zeiger & Howard Vernon
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I would say the majority of Eurotrash I've seen thus far in my capacity as a reviewer, and in my previous role as a dater of boys who dig gory foreign made movies that feature a lot of blood, bare breasts and bloody bare breasts, was born of the '80s. Seven Women For Satan, also known as Les Week-ends Maléfiques Du Comte Zaroff, was made in a more innocent time - the mid-'70s - so the boobs are fully present but there was much less blood than you would expect. (Or maybe that's just me.) I believe I was in nursery school when this was filmed but, apparently, back in 1974 young ladies thought nothing of hitchhiking alone and accepting offers to spend the night at the home of whomever picked them up. This certainly offers a few good examples of why even adults might want to heed that childhood warning about talking to strangers. Anywhoo, I think it's safe to say any movie that opens with scenes a beautiful naked woman running through the forest while being chased by an angry Great Dane and a man on a horse to the tune of an appropriately kitschy soundtrack is getting off to a curious start; this one does just that and then proceeds down an even more psychedelic path of one man's perverted champagne wishes and violent dreams. Through a series of flashbacks and / or dream sequences (or maybe they were just non-linear scenes) we learn that our leading man, Count Zaroff (Michel Lemoine), was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a torture chamber in his ancestral home's basement. (And, you know, you really need one on-site when your family's time honored tradition is killing people.) We also meet Karl, the Count's loyal servant (Howard Vernon), and learn, through another flashback type moment, that he has his own agenda. That being his vow to honor his father's dying wish; to carry on their own twisted family tradition - the aiding and abetting of any and all nefarious goings on that include some random person's untimely and unpleasant death at the hands of the Zaroff family. (Karl's father was the servant to the elder Zaroff, you see.) All this information serves as the set up for what's to come, meaning the death of many lovely young French ladies at the hand of our evil castle owner—and one dude, who gets "pinned" to his sweetheart in a very different fashion from the way my parents got pinned back in the late '60s—before you-know-who gets what's inevitably coming to him. Despite the rather uncharming nature of our protagonist, I found this obscure French film rather charming. Arguably it's a bit long in the tooth, but the overall vibe was kooky enough to make up for the way it kind of meanders along. The high points would be the setting (gotta love a good Euro castle), the music, the French babes and the crazy dialogue, particularly in the dubbed version. I love the way it was shot too, with all the weird camera angles and lighting. This might not be extreme enough to satisfy a more bloodthirsty viewer but it definitely kept us entertained for most of the 84 minutes. Also of note is the bonus fifteen minute interview with director / screenwriter / star of Seven Women For Satan, Michel Lemoine, which sheds quite a bit of light on his peculiar way of making cinematic magic.
—Bunny
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