Rating: C
Dir: Giulio Paradisi
Star: Lance Henriksen, John Huston, Paige Conner, Joanne Nail
a.k.a. Stridulum
This might be best described as a cross between The Omen and seventies pseudoscience pot-boiler, Chariots of the Gods? From the former we get the notion of a child, Katy Collins (Conner), who is being raised as part of a plan by Satanists to give the Devil – here, “Zateen” – a human form. Her mother Barbara (Nail) is unaware of this, but Mom’s boyfriend, businessman Raymond Armstead (an early role for Henriksen) is part of the Satanic cabal. Meanwhile, the forces of good are trying to defeat these plans, led by Jerzy Colsowicz (Huston). Though anyone who goes against Katy tends to suffer an unpleasant, bird-related fate, such as the detective investigating the incident where Katy shot Barbara and left her paralyzed.
So far, so generic Italian clone. Pretty much what you would expect from Paradisi (here operating under the weird pseudonym of Michael J. Paradise) and writer Ovidio G. Assonitis. The latter had already given us Exorcist knock-off Beyond the Door, plus Jaws knock-off Tentacles, and would go on to direct video nasty Madhouse. But it seems like Assonitis thought, “While The Omen was alright, it really needed more aliens.” Therefore, bolted on is a weird subplot in which both Jesus Christ (a cameoing Franco Nero, top) and Sata… sorry, Zateen, are extraterrestrials, as is Jerzy. Fortunately, for ninety percent of the movie, this can largely be ignored. There are lengthy, quite psychedelic scenes of Jerzy waiting for the mother-ship, on what looks like an underlit disco floor.
When the film says “Fuck it,” and goes its own direction, without a care for narrative coherence, it’s actually enjoyably daft. The later stages are the most consistent in this department, from the point Barbara goes to get an abortion, to stop her giving birth to the other half of the Satanic siblings. Not least, because her doctor is played by Sam Peckinpah: sadly we don’t get to see what a Peckinpah abortion is like in graphic detail. All slow-motion and enthusiastic blood squibbing, I would imagine. There’s also a stalk and slash sequence in which the wheelchair-bound Barbara is menaced by Katy’s pet falcon, which manages to be a more lunatic concept than The Omen‘s pet Rottweiler.
Sadly, you have to sit through a good hour of sub-standard malarkey to get to the entertaining stuff. Not even Shelley Winters as a no-nonsense nanny can salvage that. Indeed, there’s no complaints about the cast, which also includes Glenn Ford and Mel Ferrer. It kinda boggles the mind that all these decent actors, presumably saw the script and thought, “Yes, that sounds like just the film for me.” Amusingly, Henriksen had already appeared in Close Encounters and Damien: Omen II, which must have been good preparation for this mad combo of aliens and antichrists. Though neither of those saw him pecked to death by an irate dove. Would have been a nice warm-up for his role in Assonitis’s production of Piranha II.