SEXORCISM: THE DEVIL INSIDE HER (1976)/SACRILEGE (1971)
Directors: Zebedy Colt and Ray Dennis Steckler
After Hours Cinema

Branching out from the RetroSeduction label and its focus on softcore sinema of the sixties, After Hours Cinema has released a number of obscure and strange hardcore sex films from the sinful seventies. The earlier releases from this company have been hit-or-miss, but the company has been hitting its stride as of late, with this release of two Satan and witchcraft-themed adult classics and a series of very worthwhile STORE FRONT THEATER double- and triple-features (reviews forthcoming). This 2-disc set is unique because it takes an original approach to presenting a hardcore twin bill, though fans of the films will likely be disappointed by the a/v quality of both features.

In clips from SKIN FLICK MADNESS (also available on After Hour’s SEX IN THE SEVENTIES three-disc set under a different title), Sandy Dempsey and boyfriend Ted Reems enter a sleazy theater showing a “Sexorcism” double feature. As Sandy shows discomfort at sitting in a porno theater audience, THE DEVIL INSIDE HER unspools. Of the films directed by Zebedy Colt, this is his best, and a real unsung gem of the Golden Age of Adult Films. Terri Hall is Faith, a beautiful young woman who lives on a New England farm with her family in 1826. Director Colt is her father, an uptight religious man who whips Faith in the nude when he catches her holding hands with muscular, lowly farmhand Joseph (Dean Tait, who some may recognize from CRY UNCLE!). The two plan to marry, but Faith's sister Hope has feelings for Joseph, too. She calls upon the will of Satan to help her break the two lovers apart, but she is in over her head when the Devil has kinky, evil games in store for the entire family. He changes shapes to become Joseph, Faith, Hope and other members of the family to have sex with each person (yes, even between parents and daughters!) to take possession of their souls. In a bizarre subplot, Hope visits a witch who teaches her how to give oral by letting her service a blonde mustachioed wood sprite (Chad Lambert)!

DEVIL opens with a kaleidoscope of colors squirting amongst each other, obviously an homage to Roger Corman's similar psychedelic opening to THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (1960). Viewers may be fooled into thinking they're watching a dramatic low-budget horror film rather than a 42nd Street porno relic; other than Terri Hall's nude whipping scene, there is no sex until 14 minutes in. It makes the sudden appearance of megahung Rod Dumont as a fiercely masturbating Satan with stretchy testicles that much more surprising!! Wow! The scene is accompanied by bizarre backwards-speak and chanting monks, letting the audience know they're in for a really twisted little sex flick. Amusingly, every person possessed by the Devil is immediately adorned with garish eye make-up which would make Divine jealous! A lot happens in 67 minutes, including an attempted triple-penetration (!), and Zebedy Colt manages to keep things always interesting and consistently surprising, even to veterans of Golden Age pornography. C. Davis Smith’s cinematography is hauntingly beautiful, superbly capturing the pastoral settings and making the film look a tad more professional than it should. THE DEVIL INSIDE HER is a special example of the Satanic Sickie subgenre of 1970s porno, and comes highly recommended.

Colt's film is very well-scripted, with the obvious names of "Hope" and "Faith" helping to symbolize a good Christian family being invaded, and the entire cast is believable in their roles. Dean Tait's tongue-wagging performance as the Devil in disguise is a little much, though... Tait is a strange case: the blonde muscleboy would play straight here, but in the same year would play a vivacious bottom boy/gay lover of Gerald Grant in Jerry Douglas' bisexual epic BOTH WAYS! In discussing DEVIL with cinematographer C. Davis Smith, he mentioned that he was surprised that, off-camera, Tait was unimpressed with his sex scene with Terri Hall. Now we know why! Be sure to look for Annie Sprinkle bathing in golden showers and falling victim to all kinds of sadistic behavior in the Devil's Orgy climax scene, a sequence which led her to semi-retirement for three years! Best of all, Terri Hall delivers an atypically good performance for an adult film; her dramatic chops are head and shoulders above most of her contemporaries, and her background in ballet is beautifully clear through her graceful movements and posture. She also gave memorable turns as the young innocent turned masochist in THE STORY OF JOANNA (1975) and the exact opposite as a sexually jaded actress training Constance Money in THE OPENING OF MISTY BEETHOVEN (1976). Terri was, and still is, a hidden gem of the adult film world, and remains an enigma to her fans years later. If you squint hard, she even kinda looks like Andrea Martin from SCTV! However, Hall’s career eventually became sidetracked by her personal problems and she was rescued from self-destruction by her parents. As he did with Jean Jennings, Colt reportedly signed Hall to an exclusive contract, meaning she could only appear in his films or in the films of others for a very high price, thus destroying a potentially great career and adding more fuel to the fire of her depression and drug addiction.

My second favorite female cast member is Nancy Dare, the unsung blonde starlet who gave incredible performances in Gerard Damiano’s ODYSSEY, Joe Sarno’s THE TROUBLE WITH YOUNG STUFF, and Jonas Middleton’s THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. For some reason (maybe her own choice), she never became a superstar of the New York adult scene, but she seems to have been a professional actress who moonlighted in porn. Check out the aforementioned trio to see her at her very best. Jody Maxwell, who has benefited from a renaissance of sorts in recent years, is best-known as the “Singing Cocksucker from Kansas City”, as she could not only give great oral, but could also sing while doing it (watch her perform this wondrous talent in S.O.S. SCREW ON SCREEN!). Her major film debut was Damiano’s very hard-to-find PORTRAIT, and she made a great impression in Armand Weston’s EXPOSE ME LOVELY and Colt’s UNWILLING LOVERS, but wouldn’t really hit her stride until she became a popular older-woman character actress in porno chic hits like OUTLAW LADIES, NEON NIGHTS, THE SATISFIERS OF ALPHA BLUE, and A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND (in my opinion, this quartet, all released in 1981, makes up her finest work). She now runs her own website, www.jodymaxwell.com, and is a real doll! Also of interest to New York exploitation film fans is that producer Leon De Leon is Leonard Kirtman, director of the incredible CARNIVAL OF BLOOD (1972)! As Leon Gucci, Kirtman was one of the most loathed pornographers in New York, eventually selling his films and fleeing to retirement in Florida, where he still lives today.

Checking back in with Sandy and Ted, they’re becoming progressively more turned on, and as DEVIL ends, Ted is suckling on Sandy’s bosom while Sandy slowly turns to “the dark side”. The second feature begins: Ray Dennis Steckler’s SACRILEGE. Jay, a studious-looking man reading in the great outdoors, is approached by Cassandra, a nerdy-looking blonde woman who asks him back to her cabin. There, he meets her cat Lucifer (who can transform back and forth into the Devil) and falls prey to other hallucinations, including seeing Cassandra transform into a leather-gloved witch, who screeches like a cat and beckons him to screw her on her living room table! Post-coitus, Jay calls his girlfriend Maria, who’s busy masturbating in the bathtub, feigning car trouble so she will trek out to Cassandra’s home and join the Satanic goings-on!

After writing, producing, and directing exploitation films throughout the 1960s, Ray Dennis Steckler saw that more money could be had by producing sex films in the 1970s, so embarked on a pseudonym-filled career that he is still hesitant to discuss today (if not out and out denying he did these films!). Directing nearly 20 films in the California and Las Vegas area, none of these monstrosities could be considered “good” by any definition of the word, but at least a few are worth sitting through for some cheap thrills. SACRILEGE seems to have been shot softcore and spiced up with not-very-convincing inserts (note the cutaways not showing any performer’s face, and how some bodies are pale in longshot and tanned in close-up, a woman giving a blowjob has her hair covering her face). From a period when Steckler was doing a number of wild horror-porn hybrids, SACRILEGE (which he directed as “Michel J. Rogers”) has a few interesting moments, but is ultimately a snoozer. There’s really not much going on here, save some nice outdoor photography and nifty hallucinatory editing. Thankfully the film is barely feature-length, so you can bail early if you’re bored. Fans will be delighted to see almost unrecognizable sexploitation vet Jane Tsentas in a dual role, pre-implants, as blonde Cassandra and her black-haired witch alter ego. You should recognize the library music selections from other exploitation films (BLACK ALLEYCATS), and actor Charles Smith (“Lucifer”) is better known as Victor Alexander, who later starred as the title character in Steckler’s THE HORNY VAMPIRE.

The After Hours version of DEVIL INSIDE HER is surprisingly complete, including the controversial scenes of incest, corn-as-a-dildo, and the lengthy Annie Sprinkle humiliation scene. However, probably to mark their print to dissuade bootleggers, the opening credits have been sped up, and the unpopular AHC logo pops up a couple times. The print used for the transfer is plagued with non-stop black lines, unfortunately, making the Alpha Blue Archives DVD the still definitive version of this underrated film. As for SACRILEGE, the black-and-white transfer is quite fuzzy, once again with non-stop black lines and print damage, and the AHC logo pops up again. The real problem is this: SACRILEGE was a color film that for some reason (like Larry Buchanan’s THE NAKED WITCH) was also distributed in black-and-white! The color version is available through Something Weird Video (from a print) and Alpha Blue Archives (from a videotape, on their essential SATANIC SICKIES VOL. 1 boxed set), so this black-and-white print, while a bit more obscure, is obviously not the one to have. Additionally, this print is missing the opening credits (now replaced by computer-generated titles), and is also missing the final 3 minutes of the film after the witch cackles that her “sacrilege is complete”. SEXORCISM might be worth checking out to see the unique double-feature presentation with the clips from SKIN FLICK MADNESS, but the fact that both films’ transfers are flawed detracts from the overall experience.

Disc 2 contains a collection of loops that is the real reason to consider looking into this set! “Ecstasy in New York” is actually a 26-minute highlights reel featuring a number of sex scenes separated by shots of the Big Apple. See Paul Thomas, Joey Silvera, Leslie Bovee, Jon Martin, John Seeman, Ken Scudder, Dianne Galke (HARDGORE), among other enthusiastic men and women! All of the sex is scorching (some scenes are from RENDEZVOUS WITH ANNE), and was all shot in the San Francisco area (going by the locations and performers), not New York. “Sexual Hallucination” is a weird one: it’s a 15-minute hodge-podge of scenes, including softcore breast fetish loops, edited together with no rhyme or reason. Blink and you’ll miss Malta, Rene Bond, Suzanne McBain, Barbara Mills, and a number of other familiar and no-name faces and breasts. It makes no sense but features many genuinely erotic moments; some bits look like home movies! “Blue Monday” is a film excerpt that seems to be tinted blue (day-for-night, probably), with a couple getting it on an outdoor setting. “Nymph in Heat” stars a brunette quizzically briefly blowing a bloke before sitting on him on a leopard-skin rug. “Return of the Handyman” for some reason has a “seXXXclips.net” logo in the bottom right-hand corner through the entire loop! However, it’s one of the best loops here, with a Laura Cannon-look brunette balling a handyman she calls to fix her TV. The music playing over it is from Joe Sarno’s BUTTERFLIES, for some reason. The final loop, “Hot and Hairy” features a psychedelic countdown intro before showing another film excerpt; I recognize both the actor and actress in this one, but can’t pinpoint their names. The girl is a cautionary virgin, the boy her eager but sensitive boyfriend, and the sex between them has a great air of realism and class. The sweat is real, the orgasms are real, there’s no cumshot and no musical soundtrack (nice touches), and it’s all filmed so beautifully that I’d love to see the actual feature this came from!! Two trailer vaults contain previews for other After Hours and RetroSeduction discs. A booklet of liner notes by Ed Grant, rather than the usual 42nd Street Pete scene-by-scene descriptions, is welcome and he offers an intelligent view of both films and their history. (Casey Scott)

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