Sacrilege (1971)

Directed by:

Ray Dennis Steckler

Ray Dennis Steckler started out his career with such future cult classics as THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES... (1963) and THE THRILL KILLERS (1964), but less than a decade later would jump on the porn train and start cranking out cheap adult features right and left, usually employing aliases ("Michel J. Rogers" here). Regardless of the switch in direction, Ray often kept to his roots and centered the sex around minimal horror plotlines (about vampires, Satanism, etc.). SACRILEGE is one of his first in this category and if it's any indication of what the other five are like, I'm definitely not looking forward to them. Things begin with a three-minute sequence of a nude stripper thrusting her stuff into the camera while the four-person cast is proudly introduced. Jay (Gerard Broulard) is sitting on a hillside reading a book on witchcraft when he's approached by a blonde woman in glasses named Cassandra (Jane Tsentas), who seems to also have an interest in the occult. She says "Witchcraft is a major part of our history! It's only because of Christianity that it isn't included in our major curriculum!" then goes on to say most advances in medicine, science and biology come from witchcraft. Jay's so impressed with Cassandra's vast knowledge that he decides to accompany her back to her home. Before long strange things begin happening. For starters, Cassandra isn't the meek woman she pretends to be. She's actually an evil sorceress whose witch look includes a long black wig, cape, gloves, boots and heavy make-up. She also has a Siamese cat familiar named Lucifer that turns into a greasy, bearded man (Charles Smith, with some kind of faint green face paint).

About fifteen minutes into this one comes a ten-minute long sex scene covering most of the bases. Afterward, Jay calls his female friend Maria (Ruthana Lott, looking a bit like Rose McGowan) who's annoyed she has to stop masturbating in the bathtub and come pick him up. When she arrives, Jay is in some kind of trance. Maria bitches about how "God damn smug" men are. Cassandra (who hisses, shrieks and does this annoying echoed cackle while having sex) drugs Maria's tea and then there's a 20-minute scene with all four of the actors doing it. The witch screams "My sacrilege is complete!" and then Jay and Maria wake up the next morning and leave. The end. It's pretty boring and has the usual awful acting and silly, sometimes flubbed lines you'd expect with a quickie porn.

It was released in color or b/w versions and is also available in a shortened soft-core cut or the hardcore X cut. The latter only runs 55 minutes. Something Weird video paired it up with SATANIC SEXUAL AWARENESS for the DVD release.

★