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The Devil's Plaything

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The Devil's Plaything
Directed byJoseph W. Sarno
Written byJoseph W. Sarno
Produced byChris D. Nebe
Starring
  • Nadia Henkowa
  • Anke Syring
  • Ulrike Butz
  • Nico Wolferstetter
CinematographySteve Silverman
Edited by
  • Karl Fugunt
  • Dietmar Preuss
Music byRolf-Hans Müller [ar; de; fr; nl]
Production
companies
Distributed by
  • Saga Film (Sweden)
  • Scotia International Filmverleih (West Germany)
  • Ambassador Film Distributors (Canada)
  • Omni Pictures (United States)
Release date
  • 16 October 1973 (1973-10-16)
Running time
85 minutes
Countries
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • West Germany
LanguageEnglish

The Devil's Plaything (German: Der Fluch der schwarzen Schwestern) is a 1973 horror film directed by Joseph W. Sarno. An international co-production of Sweden, Switzerland and West Germany, the film's uncut version, features more suggestively sexual scenes.[1]

Plot

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In a central European castle, two young girls are summoned to learn about a will making them heirs to the property, on condition that they stay there for a full year. They are received by the hostess, an austere-looking woman named Wanda, who organizes satanic lesbian rites at night that celebrate, in sex and sapphism, the vampire Varga. Coincidentally, on the same day an anthropologist studying local superstitions and her brother were victims of a road accident and asked for accommodation at the castle.

Wanda turns out to be the descendant of a vampire baroness, Varga, burned alive centuries ago by the villagers for vampirism. Through the lesbian priestess Wanda, Varga seeks revenge by eliminating the families of her torturers.

Cast

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Critical response

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Nick Schager of Slant Magazine gave the film one and a half out of four stars, writing, "The Devil’s Plaything exhibits a disinterest in horror and an inability to muster eroticism..."[2] Ed Hulse of the trade journal Video Business describes the film as "a key title in the history of erotic horror", and writes, "The attractive young leads aren't the surgically enhanced bottle-blondes we typically see these days in Hollywood-made offerings of this type, and their acting is more than equal to the limited demands the script makes of them."[3]

References

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  1. ^ Comparison: R-Rated/Unrated. movie-censorship.com
  2. ^ Schager, Nick (8 November 2005). "DVD Review: The Devil's Plaything - Slant Magazine". SlantMagazine.com. Nick Schager. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  3. ^ Hulse, Ed (24 October 2005). "The Devil's Plaything". Video Business. 25 (43). Reed Elsevier, Inc.: 30. - via ProQuest
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