Seven Women for Satan (1975)

the audience applauded

For having a relatively low budget, the film's style and overall art direction are immensely impressive.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Boris Zaroff is a modern businessman who is haunted by his past -- his father was the notorious Count Zaroff of The Most Dangerous Game fame.Consequently, Boris is subject to hallucinations and all-too-real social lapses which normally involve sadistic harm to beautiful naked young women. His butler is sworn to indoctrinating him into the evils of the family line, and their castle's torture dungeon proves quite useful in this regard. However, Boris is periodically lured away from his destiny by the romantic apparition of the deceased countess who previously owned the castle. Opens with a naked woman being chased in the woods by a guy on a horse.Goes downhill from there. This movie is basically soft core porn. And like soft core porn, it doesn't have the oomph.

Michel Lemoine's 1974 offering, "Seven Women for Satan," is easily one of the weirdest movies that I have ever rented; right up there with Jess Franco's "Venus In Furs" and Jaromil Jires' "Valerie and Her Week of Wonders." In the Lemoine film, the writer/director himself plays Count Boris Zaroff, son of the original manhunting count from the Richard Connell short story "The Most Dangerous Game" (1924), famously filmed in 1932 (never mind that Zaroff was a Russian and his son in this film is as Gallic as can be). When we first meet him, Zaroff, Jr. has just purchased an enormous château, in which his butler, Karl (played by cult Eurostar Howard Vernon), in fulfillment of a promise he made to Karl, Sr., the original count's butler, is training Boris in the ways of sadism and torture. To complicate matters, Boris seems to be haunted by the spirit of a beautiful woman who died in the year 1912. I say "seems" only because the dividing line between fantasy and reality here is a thin one at best. To add to the disorientation, Lemoine utilizes odd camera angles, fish-eye lenses, dreamy soft-focus photography and some truly bizarre discourse between the film's principals. The picture treats us to a fun torture chamber sequence and features the phoniest-looking dog attack scene ever (especially when compared to the 1932 film) and an excellent score by Guy Bonnet. It is only 84 minutes long, yet still feels padded with nudie-girl segments and assorted topless dancing and writhing (nice padding, granted!). Banned in its native France and yet the Silver Medal winner at the Sitges (near Barcelona) Film Festival, the picture, surreal and trippy as it is, should have been a midnight movie staple back when, as was "El Topo." Like the Jodorowsky film, it is a real stoner treat, and a must for the lysergically enhanced mind. A true rarity, but certainly not for all tastes....

To the unaware and on the surface, this film may seem like a 70's exploitation film but it has deeper meanings. This film is almost unknown and has never received wide distribution. It was banned in France -- it's country of origin. It is one of the few "real" horror movies to come out of Europe.In this film, Boris Zaroff, initially represents the new France of business and corporate take-overs but has fallen under the spell of the old world via a portrait of the dead Anne De Boisreyvault -- a former inhabitant of the château. If Boris is to be kept on the true and narrow, schooled as a true Zaroff, he must reject this misty-eyed romantic view of turn of the century France. It is no accident that the dead woman under whose spirit Zaroff has fallen was buried in 1912 -- just before the onset of the Great War -- the war that destroyed the leisured lifestyle of the aristocrats of old France.Unknown to many is that this movie is said to be an unconscious archetype: it derives much of its power from one of Europe's oldest and most potent myths, the ancient story of The Bride of Corinth. The tale tells of a young man who visits the family of his intended. He finds the house empty and everyone seemingly gone away. He decides to stay and that night his bride visits him, only to tell him that she is already dead.The story was first recorded in the 2nd century AD in Phlegon's Marvels. It was popularized in the 18th century by Goethe who made the woman a vampire.In it's purest form, the story is actually about the death of the old gods, the end of nature and the triumph of the new European order -- rational, anti-pagan Christianity.Likewise Boris falls in love with the spirit of the dead Anne De Boisreyvault -- fallen in love with the ghost of a world long gone.The background and music fit this film well.There is also one scene with a Negro. It's not your typical Hollywood Negro character, IE The Hero. He represents the dark unconscious mind of a white woman's unrestrained sexual drive.

A warning to potential viewers: if you are looking for an adaptation of the classic story "The Most Dangerous Game," look elsewhere. "Seven Women for Satan"only superficially addresses the original work by using the name of Zaroff and having said character murder people.Some of what follows might be considered by some to be spoilers. Or not.Boris Zaroff is played by writer/director Michel Lemoine. Whereas his ancestor hunted men because they were the only prey that were truly challenging, Boris' victims are usually in a position where they cannot defend themselves. The film rambles from scene to scene with a near-total lack of clarity. The director seems to have totally disregarded pacing and left the viewer with a suffocatingly dull film. A few individual scenes are mildly interesting (such as a torture rack sequence), but as a unit, the film fails to entertain. Viewers who are moreinterested in an assortment of attractive and semi-attractive actresses in various stages of undress might find the film watchable. Most will probably find their time is better spent watching Mentos commercials.In a side note, the DVD extras included a fair amount of information on the film's history. Apparently, it was banned for several years in its native France which pretty much ruined any chance it had for widespread distribution.