Strong and Moving!

not as good as all the hype

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Sexploitation director Nick Millard dabbled in the horror genre a few times in his career. His best known effort in this capacity is the howlingly stupid "Criminally Insane" a.k.a. "Crazy Fat Ethel" (itself followed by a sequel). Then there's this cheap and tacky opus, which is decidedly more obscure. Lovers of genre rarities and bad movies will likely get a kick out of it. It may not be quality stuff, but it has a certain clunky charm, and lots of gory imagery to please splatter aficionados.Greg Braddock stars as Mark Gray, an actor who travels to North California to attend the funeral of his sister. She's supposedly committed suicide, but it turns out that she ain't dead. She's *undead* now. And she goes about attacking their aunt, the aunt's housekeeper, and other unlucky people.The movie comes complete with some delicious hambone acting by Ray Myles as the sinister Father Daken. This role is the most fun and has the most colourful dialogue / exposition. Braddock is an utter stiff, but Lisa Milano seems to be enjoying herself as the now predatory sister, sporting some utterly hilarious, ridiculous looking vampire teeth. The guy playing the intrepid detective Lt. Scott certainly looks his part."Satan's Black Wedding" is expectedly crude, but it's pretty amusing in its own silly way. The out of tune piano score is just icing on this cheesecake.And the run time is only 63 minutes, so it won't take too much time out of anyones' life.Five out of 10.

This is an obscure little low-budget exploitation flick from the mid-70's. Just how obscure are we talking? Well, this review will be number six here at IMDb. Only three actors are being credited for this movie, if the cast list is any indication. This flick is so unheard of that nobody involved with it even bothered to track down the five or six other actors that appear in this movie. That's saying quite a lot, really. I personally acquired this on a triple-movie DVD set along with two other Nick Millard movies, CRIMINALLY INSANE and its sequel. I have no idea what the other options are in terms of availability for SATAN'S BLACK WEDDING.This movie was released during a time when horror often dealt with Satanism and the rise of the devil himself. It very much rides the coattails of popularity from similarly-themed movies such as ROSEMARY'S BABY and THE EXORCIST and even lesser-known titles from the drive-in movie circuit. SATAN'S BLACK WEDDING was definitely a bandwagon-jumper, and not an especially good one, at that.First, the good things about this movie: as other reviews have mentioned, the atmosphere is very dark and spooky, in a way unseen in later horror films. The opening shots of a Goya painting, coupled with creepy, off-kilter piano music, certainly set the stage for a genuinely disturbing movie. The score for this movie was very well placed, as were many of the sets and locations.On the other hand, this is a very cheap movie, and finding professional actors must have been rather tricky. Many of the actors, most of whom are not listed on IMDb, were pretty wooden. The special effects aren't much to write home about, either. The bright red "70's blood," as I call it, is to be expected, but the vampire teeth used for the undead Satanists looked as though they were purchased out of one of those 25-cent vending machines seen in the opening walkways at your local department stores--the kind you might have used as a child while completing a Dracula costume for Halloween. It's hard to be scared of creatures with those plastic monstrosities sticking out of their mouths.The plot is pretty basic. Mark, a young actor and Elvis Presley lookalike, arrives in town to investigate the mysterious death of his sister. As he continues searching, he finds that she was involved in a bizarre underground cult of devil-worshippers who, through some sort of dark rites, are able to reanimate the dead as some sort of Satanic vampire things that bite necks and suck the blood from the living.This is a fun movie for those who enjoy cheap horror flicks that virtually nobody has ever heard of. I can honestly recommend this for that crowd. For those who prefer a higher-budget flick or something that had a little more talent behind it, I'd suggest steering clear of this one.

The acting is mostly terrible. The editing is worse. The entire production suffers from a rushed, haphazard look. But somehow, "Satan's Black Wedding" manages to do what a horror film is supposed to do: leave the viewer with a lingering sense of unease. Pointing out this movie's flaws is like shooting fish in a barrel, but figuring out what makes it work is considerably more tricky. More than anything else, I think it's the cinematography. The jittery camera-work and agonizing closeups give the film a gritty, authentic feel, so that you almost believe you're watching a documentary even when the female vampire is gnawing on the neck of a shrieking victim and bright red stage blood spurts everywhere. It should look ridiculous, but it doesn't--and that's what makes "Satan's Black Wedding" a frightening film. The little things help, too, of course (they always do). The Monterey location shots drip with an atmosphere of gloom and foreboding. Ray Myles is appropriately weird-looking as the vampire priest. Best of all is Lisa Milano, the actress who plays the sister of Greg Braddock, the male lead: the look on her dead, pale face after she has repeatedly slashed her wrists (the most unsettling scene in the film, for my money) is straight out of a nightmare. And the film's surreal climax, though it takes place a little too abruptly, is disturbing, too.

Satan's Black Wedding (1975) ** (out of 4) Mildly entertaining film has a brother investigating his sister's suicide. He eventually tracks down the killers to a church, which is being used by vampires for Satanic rituals. This is a very cheaply made film running just over an hour and while there's nothing too original going on here it does remain interesting throughout. If you don't expect The Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby then you should get a few minor grins out of this film. There's some nice, if cheaply done, gore scenes to keep things moving. Outside of that we get some really hammy performances, which lead to a couple laughs.