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Black Candles
[Deimos]
1983; color
Directed by Jose Ramon Larraz
Starring: Helga Line & Vanessa Hidalgo
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Every time I get to watch one of these somewhat obscure (at least to me) Eurosleaze flicks from the early '80s, it makes me think that in Europe at least the swingin' '70 were still going strong well into the next decade. Black Candles (whose original Spanish title, Los Ritos Sexuales Del Diablo, is far more appropriate and accurate) mixes Satanism, softcore porn and a bit of horror into a heady brew that had me thinking "What the fuck is going on here?!" more than once. The movie opens with a guy having sex and keeling over dead from an apparently voodoo-pin-induced heart attack, followed by his sister and her boyfriend arriving in England for the reading of the will. From here, things take a radical turn—a satanic downward spiral, if you will—as we soon see that everyone in the movie is a Satanist, except for a farmhand and the visiting couple. And this crew isn't just your run-of-the-mill Satanists, they're a full-on, sexed-up coven who appear ready for an orgy at the drop of a black robe. Oh, and then there's the goat. Out of the blue, after a bit of revelatory dialogue that's unfortunately muffled due to horrible audio transfer, we jump to a woman (who's part of the coven) jerking off a goat. But, it gets "better." Apparently, the purpose of this is to prep the goat for his next assignment—impregnating one of the girls in the coven. This bit of implied bestiality is not only completely outrageous, it's one of the absolutely craziest scenes I think I've ever seen in a movie. Truth be told, it looks like the girl has sex with a guy in a man-sized goat suit. (Or perhaps, as Bunny hypothesized, when a devout Satanist gives a goat a handjob, it makes the animal grow into a giant, man-sized creature.) Either way I'm sure it had jaws dropping in theaters during the early '80s. As time progresses (it's impossible to tell if this movie takes place over days, weeks, or even months) the coven tries to draw the visiting couple into their web. They succeed with the boy, but the girl resists up until what seems like the very end. If your appetite has been whetted by what you've read so far, I'm not gonna spoil the ending for you; and if you're either repulsed, repelled or still just not curious enough to seek this insane movie out let me add in this little tidbit: director, Jose Ramon Larraz (who also did one of my favorite vampire movies, Vampyres) supposedly felt so uneasy about the finished product - especially the goat-on-girl scene - he pretty much distanced himself completely from the finished product, refusing to talk about it or be associated with the film in any way.
—the Kommandant
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