The Brotherhood of Satan

Slow-paced arty flick about satanism in a remote desert town

A family gets stuck in a desert town where the people seem to have gone mad. No wonder, a satanic cult has set up shop there. Charles Bateman & Ahna Capri play the couple, LQ Jones the sheriff, Strother Martin the doctor and Charles Robinson the priest.

“The Brotherhood of Satan” (1971) combines elements of “Carnival of Souls” (1962) and "The Masque of the Red Death” (1964) for satanic horror in a desert town.

It has the stamp of an early 70s’ art film and was the precursor to flicks like “Race with the Devil” (1975) and “The Devil’s Rain” (1975). It’s not as good as the former, but better than the latter. The main problem is the tedious pacing with pointless scenes, like the unnecessarily long driving sequence with no conversation near the beginning. Scenes such as this should’ve been scrapped for an effective 74-minute movie, like “Gargoyles” (1972).

Cinema started to flirt with satanism in the early 60s with Roger Corman's "The Masque of the Red Death" and England's "Devils of Darkness," which were shot in 1963 and 1964 respectively. You can trace it back further if you consider "The City of the Dead," aka "Horror Hotel," which was made in 1959. The overt satanism is surprising for films shot way back then.

Like "The Brotherhood of Satan," none of those movies painted satanism in a positive light, but LaVey capitalized on this new interest and sprung his "church" of satan in 1966. Hammer's "The Devil Rides Out" (a.k.a. "The Devil's Bride") and "Rosemary's Baby" went into production the next year.

The other day I saw a recent movie that ludicrously turned the tables by making the satanic witches the protagonists and the twisted serial killers Evangelical believers. Yup, Christians are the real evil out there (rolling my eyes).

The film runs 1 hour, 32 minutes, and was shot in New Mexico & Southern Cal.

GRADE: C