Good start, but then it gets ruined

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

You'll either like it or not. Most of the time I enjoy these types of films but this one I found rather boring. The first 45 minutes of it was long and drawn out.. I fast-forwarded it to what appeared to be an exciting part and watched it - boring as well. I kept doing that until the end of the film and I found that to be nothing exciting. I am not sure what it is about this film that I disliked because I generally like the 1970s occult movies but this one did not grab me at all.You will not be missing much of anything if you pass by this horror film but if you watch it you will either be bored by it, as I was, or you will like it as others do.2/10

This is a very original production in all its surrealistic absurdity for its fantastic imagination and imagery - there is a tremendous dream sequence in the middle of the film, a nightmare, of course, but very efficient, credible and well done - exactly like that real nightmares tend to haunt you. The horror is not ridiculously exaggerated, like in most later horror films, but actually creeps into you with some efficiency and manages to present a spectacle that gets more fascinating all the time, until the grand finale, which offers some additional surprises. The actors are all unknown, its a budget film with no pretensions, but it certainly deserves some attention, together with other odd films of some uniqueness, for instance "Wild in the Streets" from 1968 about a stipulated flower power world revolution. This belongs in almost the same category for making the absurd credible enough to catch your interest, which is the element of cinematic magic: the art of making the impossible credible and surrealism as a visually acceptable reality. Of course, it's a B-feature and not on par with professional standards, but it certainly is better than most B-features and well worth seeing at least for once. The idea in itself is timeless: the problem of old age to renew itself, its longing for the lost youth, and the wishful thinking of the possibility of renewing it, a theme which also dominates a later and much more refined horror thriller, "The Skeleton Key" from 2005. Here the question is left open - did they succeed, or did they not? The door is left open for any possibility and impossibility.

For some reason in the 1970's it seemed to be a requirement for every former cast member of "The Wild Bunch" to appear in a low-budget satanic-themed horror movie. You had Ernest Borgnine in the ridiculous "Devil's Rain", Warren Oates in the underrated "Race with the Devil", and of course William Holden in the the overblown sequel "Damien: Omen II". The weirdest one though was probably this one which features both Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones (Jones, who would later write and direct the cult classic "A Boy and his Dog", also contributed to the screen play).It starts out promisingly enough with an entire family somehow being compacted in their car, all except for the young son who wanders off and runs into a strange group of other children. For awhile it is unclear whether this movie is ripping off "Village of the Damned" or "Rosemary's Baby", as you have this group of orphaned and kidnapped children wandering around after their parents have been done by a bizarre murder spree, AND you have a coven of decrepit oldsters led by Strother "What we have here is failure to commun'cate" Martin. The main protagonists are a good-looking but bland couple and their young daughter who are only passing through town, but become involved in the weird goings after they discover the remains of the compacted family. Jones plays the good guy sheriff, and Martin has a second role as the seemingly kindly town doctor. The satanic scenes are very weird with a lot of freaky shots of children's dolls, and people violently convulsing and dropping dead. The pretty blonde wife also has a "Rosemary's Baby" style hallucinatory dream that is like "Coffin Joe" on particularly bad acid. The end finally ties everything together sort of, but this remains one of those 70's movies that is a lot longer on style than on logic. Still I guess I'd recommend it if you go for these sort of films at all.

I was 10 or eleven years old when this movie came out, and it has stayed with me for 35 years since. When the movie came out, all of the theaters in the St. Louis area distributed, as a 'lure', a pack of flower seeds that had the movie name, etc. on the front. On the back of the pack it read, in so many words....plant these seeds at midnight. If a white flower grows, you are saved.....but if a red flower grows, you are doomed!!! Suffice it to say, that for an eleven year old kid, I did not plant the seeds for fear of what may pop up. Here is the spoiler: As the movie starts out, you see a small toy tank moving about in the dirt. On a small road a family is leaving town, and suddenly the camera turns to the tank again, and it is full size. It rolls over the car, and you see bloody limbs protruding from the wreckage, then, just as sudden, the tank is small again.The reason this movie stuck with me for that long, was because I had a exact toy tank as the one in the movie!!!! Unfortunately I don't know what happened to it, but I did keep a wary eye on that thing ever since!!!Turn out the lights, put in the DVD, make a sandwich, and watch this movie. It is very good!!!