BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE-DEVILS

Director Ted Mikels' "Blood Orgy of the She-Devils"(1972). Cool title, huh? Sounds like the makings of a great b-film. Wrong. The title is very misleading. There is some blood, there is no orgy, and there are no she-devils. What you have instead is a low budget hodge-podge of a film about black magic and the occult. A subject like this in Ted V. Mikel's hands should have been a gold mine. If you are going into this movie expecting another warped masterpiece such as "The Corpsegrinders" or "The Astro-Zombies" you will be disappointed.

Here's "Blood Orgy of the She-Devils" in a nutshell. It is about Mara, a powerful witch who conducts seances and other such nonsense in her mansion. In this mansion lives her minions...I guess these are the 'she-devils'. They conduct ridiculous black masses and human sacrifices and the like, with some inexplicable, horribly choreographed dancing. Mara agrees to kill a diplomat for someone for money using black magic. She succeeds, and the people who planned the assassination decide to kill Mara because she knows too much about their operation and is too powerful to be left alive. They kill Mara and a few of her minions. Mara resurrects herself and seeks revenge on her killers. Eventually some do-gooders, practicers of white magic, find out what Mara is doing, and they have to drive out the demons that Mara has invoked in her mansion before all hell breaks loose.

Sounds like a decent plot, right? Maybe, but it is executed rather clumsily. This movie could have been condensed to thirty minutes and it would be ok. But it is packed with filler, haphazard scenes thrown together that make no sense and have little to do with the movie. The acting is worse than what you would usually expect. There is tons of screaming. "Blood Orgy of the She-Devils" seems like it could be a wild ride but it is not. With that being said, I still enjoyed this movie in a weird way. It's kinda fun to look at in all it's retro-cheese-occult grandeur. I enjoyed the ending. The last fifteen to twenty minutes is maddening, well worth putting up with the rest of the film.

Would I watch this movie again? Probably not. If you haven't seen any Ted V. Mikels before, steer clear of this one and watch "The Astro-Zombies", "Mark of the Astro-Zombies", and "Corpsegrinders 1&2". I recommend "Blood Orgy of the She-Devils" to die hard Ted V. Mikels fans and hardened b-movie fanatics only.