The Vengance of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 1 - Blood Orgy of the She Devils

Anyway in movie land it’s Oscar season where Hollywood celebrates itself and well that’s about it really – TMC is of course running it’s 31 days of Oscar and I thought it was time to go back to the bottom of the barrel and unearth some more cheese from the dream factory and elsewhere.

Well I’m off to a late start for the 31 days of cheese – I’ll need to either do more than one review a day or just start now and finish sometime in March

However, this is no concern of yours dear reader – and so for the first film I present – 1973’s Blood Orgy of the She Devils.

First, there really isn’t an orgy.

Nor are there really she-devils.

There is blood but not as much as you would think.

Let me explain – the film comes from the fever dreams of one Ted. V. Mikles, a cut rate Roger Coreman – think about that for a second if you will – best known for his series of very silly Astro Zombies films or The Girl in Gold Boots that was heckled without mercy by the guys at MST3K – sometimes they will give folks a break but not this time.  Anyway Ted was always had a knack for titles – Astro Zombies being a good example . Titles were not a problem. The rest however was.

We open with a sort of witches Sabbath being preformed – there are women in halters looking tops (in case one is wondering nope no nudity here boys – sorry it was just on the cusp of the idea of having topless women in a horror film became required) and the chief witch for some reason I want to call her Sabrina but she isn’t  it’s Mara is leading a service – one distinguishing feature is a guy who is tied to a table – considering he’s tied to a table he seems rather mellow about the whole thing – at lot more that I would be I must say.

Table guys lack of anxiety notwithstanding the women begin to dance about to the beat of a guy on the bongos – we don’t see him except here and later in the climatic witches Sabbath so maybe he was just part time – still as  what seems a trope in these sort of films he’s wearing a loincloth – as I think about it I rather like that he’s just a normal guy who gets a call every now and gets his bongos out and gets on his loin cloth and drives over to where ever he is called to go – one day a witches Sabbath the next a voodoo ceremony the next sacrificing to a man eating plant; it’s a living.

So the ceremony continues Mara says potent gibberish ‘as I will so mote it be” which is actually something said in modern pagan circles at least the so mote it be part. Ted said that he did a lot of reading of occult lore before he wrote the screenplay – maybe I think he rather skimmed a bit and noted things here and there – which I can understand, occult works are very tough slogs to read – they can’t help it, it’s the nature of the beast.

So the dancing goes on then a little guy with an absurd fur had and a big mustache – it was the 70’s – who was in Girl in gold boots as well as a minor thug – says get the spears – so the dancing girls get the spears – then he says kill – and so they do – stabbing the guy on the table who exhibits no emotion when hearing the words get the spears. It’s rather odd

After that roll credits – and we then find Mara being asked by two foreign looking types is she can use her black magic powers to kill this diplomat or some such.

But first we flash to the male and female leads – Lorraine (one Leslie McRae who was in Girl in gold Boots as said girl in gold boots actually the second one) and Tom Pace who played per MST3k the icky elf character Buzz in Girl who beat some poor guys head in with a tire iron by the end of the film (here he is called Mark) – so they are in this film a couple – with all the chemistry of – well something totally without chemistry an exact analogy fails me at this moment. Leslie is going to see Mara to do some past life regression and then attend a séance and she convinces Mark to attend.

First Lorraine has a past life regression – wherein she experiences the end of that past life – it’s violent – in fact all the past life regressions in this film feature only the ending of that past life and they are all violent.   My suspicion is that there was not enough things happening in the film itself so Ted inserted the violent scenes to keep the audience’s attention – it doesn’t quite work however.

We then witness, the second most racist séance scene I’ve seen in movies – first prize remains the one in the Wild World of Bat woman – but this is pretty awful – Mara summons one of her spirit guides a native American who speaks like an extra from a 1930’s western “Me need speakum first squaw.”  And goes downhill from there.

Meantime Mara kills via black magic the target she was given, however after that the men who hired her decide that It’s not a good idea to keep you hit witch hanging around and try to kill her and her assistant – one of her coven or whatever she has gets caught in the fire as well and apparently all are killed – still one wonders if they hired someone to kill the diplomat why not hire someone to kill the witch? I suspect the films budget has something to do with that.

However is seems witches are not easy to kill and Mara recovers and resurrects the assistant with the disturbing mustache – the young woman is left dead. They then take their revenge on the two men killing each of them via a form of voodoo.

And then that subplot ends – and is never mentioned again – actually that might have made a nice little horror anthology ½ story but it just feels like it put into this film because there isn’t enough story in the main plot to make the film feature length (a problem we will encounter more than once as we go on here.

Meantime Lorraine and Tom are talking to Dr. Helsford who is an expert on the occult and magic – you wonder how many university chairs of magic and occult studies there are – Burn Witch Burn has Christopher Lee as a wild-eyed professor teaching magic and witchcraft at a university. Moreover, he seems to have tenure as well – that must have been an interesting meeting – “so what about X do we give him tenure?” “Well while I don’t necessarily believe all the things he’s talking about, I think prudence would suggest that we grant him tenure, just in case” “true – I’m not hip on waking up as a frog”.

My mind is wandering – anyway Dr. Helsford talks – and talks and talks about how the young people of today are moving away from traditional morals and are seeking meaning in things like magic – which he says is the same black or white it is the motive of the user that counts.

Uh-huh.

Well after that to be honest not a lot happens – Tom is show his past life – tied to a tree and shot by Native Americans. Really why would you do this? What possible benefit, even if this was true would you get from learning how your past life ended? Sense this makes not.

Still – after some tooing and frowing – there is a second Witches Sabbath – this time Tom is there as well as Loraine – Mara says that we must be free of our restrictions and Tom takes off his shirt – the rest of the cast remains dressed. …sigh…Tom as was shown earlier being fed drugs – which explains the passive approach of the fellow in the first Sabbath. Anyway, it all starts again this time with Loraine dancing up a storm completely independently of the other women.

Meantime outside Helsford has summoned three comrades – fellow professors apparently – and where did they come from Miskatonic University?  They all set up at the four cardinal compass points and attempt to disrupt the ceremony inside – Helsford says Tom and Lorraine are in deadly danger and this is the only way to save them.

And surprise, surprise they manage to disrupt the energy – as shown by cheesy lighting effects and inside the house all hell breaks loose and then instead of simply stabbing Tom, the she devils and Lorraine all start stabbing each other and the guy with the mustache, Mara screams in distress.

And outside, moving like they are trying not to be too early to a cocktail party, our four professors come to the front door of the house and open it – and discover a scene of carnage including the dead bodies of both Tom and Lorraine. It’s hard to read their expressions I’m not sure if they are bored or hungry – because they surely are not reacting to what is front of them.

As a last piece of business, Mara has turned herself into a bat and one of the professors a) spears said bat and then b) tosses said bat on fire. A cheesy ghost effect appears and disappears implying that Mara is no longer with us but available for the unmade sequel.

Even for a short 73-minute film – this one has a lot of padding and not a lot of forward momentum. In his better (and this is grading on curve) films like Astro zombies there is an energy that keeps the absurd engine moving forward. Not so much here.

Enjoy if you must with a cheese sandwich.