i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Brilliant and touching

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Several times, young people disappear in a Greek village. Private investigator Milo (Costa Skouras) starts a search for them together with a priest (Donald Pleasence), because something evil seems to be lurking around. Baron Corofax (Peter Cushing) is indeed running a satanic cult, namely for the ancient Minotaur, and performs human sacrifices in a nice red uniform. Everyone in the village seems to be part of it, even the police sergeant (Fernando Bislani). Milo and the priest make any possible mistake, though: they don't listen to a witness while she still could talk, ignore cult members walking by their inn fully dressed in black cloaks, they leave the blond girl alone (three times!) so she can be threatened, chased or abducted, and they always leave their weapons including silver crosses and holy water behind in their room. This must be one of the worst 'investigations' I have ever watched, basically the 2 heroes know from the start what they are looking for, and they behave so clumsily that you want to slap them. But the ridiculous flick develops a certain otherworldly atmosphere, surprisingly. They had great locations in Greece, impressive character actors like Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence, and the experimental soundtrack by Brian Eno is contributing a lot, with its lack of tonality and bass notes that linger on for minutes, aiming at the subconscious. If the story hadn't been so terribly weak, 'The Devil's Men' ('Land of the Minotaur' on USA DVD) could have been a recommendable oddity.

How can you go wrong with a film that mixes the sophistication of Peter Cushing, the determination of Donald Pleasence and the bust of Luan Peters? Easy, you give them a terrible script to work with.Peter Cushing, in an evil role, leads a Satanic cult that has captured a couple friends of Donald Pleasence. Donald plays a determined but aloof priest that desires to locate his friends but needs the help of Fred from Scooby-Doo to locate them. He summons the help of a New York bloodhound, who dresses just like the hero of the cartoon, in his task. Meanwhile, the girlfriend of one of the missing people, Luan Peters, joins the search. If all this sounds interesting, then you, like myself, were mislead.It doesn't take long for the trio to sniff out the baddies but their methods of bringing the bad guys to justice are foolish. Also, women will find this a crapfest. Every time they get on the bad guys trail, our two male heroes tell Luan to stay at the hotel even though she can handle herself better than the squeamish priest played by Pleasence.STORY: $ (The script really lets us down. No tension is built. No worthwhile dialogue is given the stars and you'll need both hands to count the number of times Luan Peters is told to stay behind and let men do men work. If you're interested in seeing a minotaur on film don't bother. We get a statue of a minotaur that spits flames).VIOLENCE: $$ (There are some attacks and a few sacrifices, but those of you who drool for gore will be letdown).ACTING: $$ (Even though there are three of my favorite actors in this film, there is nothing redeemable here. Peter Cushing doesn't have much screen time, Donald Pleasence is clearly aware that he is on the set of a stinker and Luan Peters is ill-used. This should have been much better given the talent involved, but then again, the Yankees lose a game here and there too).NUDITY: $ (Luan Peters takes a bath but you see next to nothing. She isn't as obliging here as she was in The Flesh and Blood Show).

Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasance are legendary actors, and director Kostas Karagiannis was the man behind the successful Greek Giallo-esquire thriller Death Kiss in 1974; and yet when you combine the three talents, all you get is this complete load of drivel! God only knows what drove the likes of Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasance to star in this cheapie devil worship flick, but I really do hope they were well paid as neither one deserves something as amateurish as this on their resumes. The story focuses on a group of devil worshippers that kidnap some kids, leading another group to go after them. The pace of the plot is very slow and this ensures that the film is very boring. The plot is also a long way from being original and anyone with even a passing interest in the horror genre will have seen something a bit like this, and no doubt done much better. The obvious lack of budget is felt throughout and the film doesn't manage to overcome this at any point. This really is a depressing and miserable watch and not even a slightly decent ending manages to up the ante enough to lift this film out of the very bottom of the barrel. Extremely poor stuff and definitely not recommended!

Better than you might expect horror outing about a small Greek village succumbing to the old, Pagan ways and keeping alive the cult of the Minotaur, in this case a statue of a bull that shoots out flames from its nostrils and apparently speaks independent of any moving mouth. Young, crazy "kids" have been disappearing after they go searching for the site of the Minotaur. Father Roche( a Catholic priest living inexplicably in a remote part of Greek Orthodox country)has his suspicions that evil forces are at work and warns a group of teen travelers to stay away from the site. They ignore him and disappear. Soon Roche calls for a friendly detective from New York, who along with the girlfriend of one of the missing guys, aids Roche in discovering the secrets of the village and the nature of the evil. What makes this highly implausible, totally absurd story work is the acting. Pleasance is a very underrated actor and is able to make the most of his Van Helsing type role - battling the forces of evil and having a sort of sixth sense about it. Veteran horror icon Peter Cushing plays the bad guy, here a Baron Corofax from Carpathia, with his usual charm, grace, and stoicism. Cushing and Pleasance give very good turns in their roles and raise this film above the mire. As for the rest of the cast - don't expect too much. They are for the most part all Greek as this is a Greek production and directed by Costas Karagiannis. There are; however, two beautiful blondes that wear the shortest shorts possible - Luann Peters and Vanna Reville. Both are very attractive, but cleavage(from both ends) aside - their acting is only adequate at best. Costas does do some things very nicely. He creates some tension in the village by creating a sense that everyone is against the threesome. The scenes in the cave with Cushing presiding over sacrifices are pretty eerie until the bull shows up. By no means is this a great film, but Cushing and Pleasance show once again that good, solid acting can overcome most obstacles.