Demon Witch Child is a 1975 Spanish horror film directed by Amando de Ossorio, best known for his Blind Dead series of films. Starring Marián Salgado, Julián Mateos, Fernando Sancho and Kali Hansa, the film is generally judged by one of two camps – those who see it simply as one of the slew of post-Exorcist cash-ins and those who see it something of a minor classic from one of the more overlooked of Europe’s genre directors.
In remotest Spain, a witch is ransacking a church in order to obtain relics for her coven’s Black Mass. The local police close in on the old crone and add child snatching to her list of crimes, prompting much cackling until the police threaten her with a truth serum injection, at which point, rather unexpectedly, she throws herself out of the police station window, killing herself. Decidedly more attractive witch (Hansa, also seen in de Ossorio’s own Night of the Sorcerers and Jess Franco’s Perverse Countess), vows to avenge her partner in crime by cursing the police inspector (Italian Western regular, Sancho) and giving his young daughter, Susan (Salgado, who also pops up in Who Can Kill a Child?), a cursed talisman, which she hides inside her teddy bear – just their little secret, you understand.
Though initially coming across as a rather innocuous bunch of loons in the woods, the witches soon reveal themselves as extremely evil-hearted and Susan’s curse soon takes effect, changing her from a sweet little girl (actually, the least convincing sweet little child since Peter Bark in Burial Ground) to a levitating, (mildly) swearing, baby-killing, castrating maniac, though in her defense, she does gift-wrap the severed penis to give to her mum as a present (keep that receipt!). A doubting priest (Mateos from Cold Eyes of Fear) enters the fray but will he have the faith and strength to lift the curse and stop the witches’ mayhem?
In fairness, Demon Witch Child would have sufficed as a three-word synopsis. However, what de Ossorio regularly lacks in narrative and the ability to harness acting talent, he again makes up for in genuine creepiness and an often startling gloom, right up until the final frame. The slender budget inevitably makes the effects look shakey, especially the levitation scene but also adds a strange otherworldliness to Salgado’s make-up and the scene in which the old hag’s soul inhabits Susan’s body. Though centered on witchcraft rather than the demonic possession of The Exorcist, there is a connection between the two films, with Salgado dubbing Linda Blair’s voice in the Spanish language edition of the more famous film. The film is, by turn, ridiculous and intriguing, some scenes seemingly having no bearing on plot and the priest’s moral and religious dilemmas being more Jeremy Kyle than a search for divine truth. Titled La Endemoniada (the cursed or the damned) in the original Spanish, the film has been released on dvd by Code Red as part of a double bill with Help Me…I’m Possessed!
Daz Lawrence
