The Touch of Satan
The Touch of Satan
PG | 23 August 1971 (USA)
The Touch of Satan Trailers

A murderous and decrepit old woman resides on a California walnut farm with her family. On a whim, a traveler named Jodie makes a brief side trip to the farm, where he meets and falls in love with Melissa, the proverbial farmer's daughter. Jodie and Melissa grow closer as Melissa begins to reveal the strange, dark history of her family.

Reviews
Harockerce What a beautiful movie!
Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation
SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
lemon_magic "Touch Of Satan" has the feel of a movie destined for the 3rd feature at an drive-in triple feature. You get the feeling that by the time this thing started rolling at 1:00 am, everyone left at the drive-in was either 90% asleep, drunk off their butts, or so involved in heavy petting that it didn't matter what was on the screen. So on that level, TOS worked fine. It filled in 90+ minutes of screen and gave the night-owls some video background to accompany whatever their real priority happened to be at the time. Unfortunately, I had to watch it while wide awake, 100% sober, and undistracted by any opportunity to smooch and make out. And so I have little use (or pity) for this movie....and I have to confess that it was so incredibly dull that I had a lot of trouble making myself pay attention to it. I kept pausing the VCR to get a soda, or go to the bathroom, or make myself a sandwich, or make a phone call, or to start the dishwasher. Then I'd get back, start things up again, and try to pay attention for another 5 minutes...only to decide it was time to start the laundry, or pay a couple of bills, or do some push-ups...But unless a movie is actively offensive or horrifically awful, I always try to watch a movie all the way through and give it every chance to prove itself. So I eventually got to the end of "TOS", and my final reaction was...."Meh.". I have to admit, there is the germ of a decent, unsettling story in this movie, and there is a plot twist that could actually be considered somewhat clever. The cinematography is OK in a 70's "Movie Of the Week" way, and the young romantic leads are decent looking, if not particularly striking. But even though director Tom Laughlin (of "Billy Jack" and "Master Gunfigher" fame) had previously managed to make some involving (if contrived) movies, here he couldn't pace a dramatic scene to save his life, and he definitely didn't have the know-how or the talent to make these uncharismatic actors carry the movie. Maybe he should have stuck to directing himself and his regular cast of cronies. Or maybe he should have stuck in some hapkido or some gunfighting to pick things up a bit. He definitely didn't have a feel for "horror". As a previous reviewer astutely commented, this movie screams for a remake. Unlike good older movies, which are often happy accidents of inspiration, zeitgeist, and talent, the addition of modern 'gee-whiz' MTV jump cuts, CGI, and hot young actors would add a lot of visual interest to the proceedings, and would help frame the mildly interesting plot in a flattering way that held the viewer's attention. However, that probably isn't going to happen. Hollywood is never going to be that desperate for material that this dull-tastic collection of 70's clichés will ever get a shiny new outfit. Even in the MST version, the guys just didn't have anything to work with. That's kind of sad.
Seth Nelson This movie just sounds too plain awful. I can't even imagine seeing this film un-Mystified right before my eyes. And what I mean by that is watching it without the ultimate "Mystery Science Theater 3000" treatment this movie deserves. I've seen some "Mystery Science Theater 3000" episodes in my life, and believe me, watching most of these movies as originally intended (as in a theater, of course) would give be permanent depression! And this would most likely include this movie, too! So if you happen to come upon "The Touch of Satan," do yourself and your mind a favor: watch it with Mike and the Bots, will you, please? I've never seen it, but I know I'll do that!
Gafke A young man named Jody drives across country and decides to stop and have lunch in a small town where, he's been told, a "chromichidal maniac" is on the loose. He meets a young pretty girl named Melissa, falls instantly love and follows her home for dinner. Dinner turns into a weekend and we slowly (very slowly) learn that Melissa is no ordinary seventeen year old girl. She's a 120 year old witch who sold her soul to Satan, and the incredibly wrinkled woman she claims is her great grandmother is actually her little sister...and a "chromichidal maniac" to boot. Seems Melissa sold her soul to save the weird old chick from being burned at the stake by an angry mob 120 years earlier. Now, it seems, nothing can save Melissa from the curse...except perhaps for Jody's love. Will he sell his own soul to save her? Who cares?This 70s effort is filled with bad acting, a terrible script and a story that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The flashbacks to the 1850s still manage to look like the 1970s and the angry mob is more of a slightly irritated gathering. Everyone looks stoned and delivers their lines in half hearted monotones, eyes glazed and faces expressionless. And Jody has got to be the stupidest kid yet to appear on screen. He hangs around even though he's clearly not wanted and continues to hang around even after things begin to get menacing. Not even the sight of Gramma-Sister eviscerating a cop with a scythe can scare him away for long. No, he's too much in love with Melissa, a drab farmgirl with minimal beauty whose claims of Witchy-ness cannot penetrate Jody's thick skull and sound any sort of alarm bells. And who the hell are those people that Melissa is living with? They're not her parents, but they're in on the Dreadful Truth, so what gives? This is just one of the many glaring plot holes that litter this lackluster film. Not even the horrific murders and the fiery finale could keep me from nodding off. This movie just kind of plods along like a cinematic sedative until it finally peters out and ends with no fanfare whatsoever. Guaranteed to cure insomnia.
Martin Edelius We follow Jodie, a guy, but with a name like that he's exactly the kind of wuss you expect him to be, driving way out to the country to eat his ham sandwich.He then stumbles upon Melissa who lives on the walnut farm (yep, you read that right) he stopped at. Besides a psycho grandma, Melissa has another dark secret that Jodie slowly, and I mean SLOWLY, unravels.Without the help of MST3k this movie would be a total pain in the royal behind. The pacing is slower than flowing tar on the North Pole, the dialog is unbelievably campy and dull and the acting is just plain crap.I'm not going to call this a turkey because the whole thing is not even funny bad, it's just bad bad. If you like boring, long-winded, trying-to-be-scary-but-just-stupid movies from the seventies, go ahead and watch this.If you do, I recommend you watch the MST3k version though.