Powerful

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

A widower father from Southern California, on a car trip with his girlfriend and eight-year-old daughter, passes through rural terrain and spots a horrific accident off the highway. Driving into nearby Hillsboro to alert the sheriff, the group is surrounded by a mob and barely escape with their lives. Ensnared by cruel fate, however, they are unable to get very far, as this town is locked down by the supernatural and this family has something they desperately want. Bizarre horror outing with echoes of "Rosemary's Baby" (among other films) has familiar ingredients and yet remains a very unusual picture with a brilliant look and feel. Director Bernard McEveety (doing superlative work) and his cinematographer, John Arthur Morrill, give us a nightmare in the daylight, with widescreen scene-compositions full of interesting detail and gorgeous color. The cast is very good, too, with Strother Martin having a grand time as a shady town doctor. All the movie needed, really, was a more compact, less fancy script. The further we get into the plot, the less the film as a whole tends to make sense. ** from ****

"The Brotherhood of Satan" is a singularly creepy movie. I'm surprised I haven't heard more about it. The opening sets the tone. A toy tank clicks and spins. A car is crushed flat by a very real tank, the family inside screaming. The two are cut together, no explanation provided. After the car is reduced to burning wreckage, a little boy in a cowboy hat calmly walks away, soon joined by a group of other quiet children. There is no music and the whole sequence is shot in either extreme close-ups or wide long shots. The effect is deeply creepy."Brotherhood of Satan" is actually packed with spooky imagery like that. A little girl is awoken by her baby doll. Downstairs, her father reads solemnly from the Bible, unaware that his wife is having silent seizure-like spasm right next to him. On its own accord, the doll enters the room. It doesn't spring to life and attack the man. Instead, the toy simply stares him down, shaking with glee, the man bleeding from the mouth. After the parents are dead, the little girl joins a group of other children, walking off into the foggy night. The doll cries a murky tear.The movie is disinterested in plot. There is a story. A stout-chinned man, his girlfriend, and eight year old daughter are on a road trip. While stopping through the town of Hillsboro, California, they are attacked by crazed locals. After escaping, their car breaks down outside the town, forcing the three to return. Over a nightmarish pace, we are made privy to a plot by the town's devil-worshipping elderly to kidnap children, sell their souls to Satan, and take up residence in the now lifeless young bodies. The dad and town priest realize this slowly, unaware that the kindly old doctor is the ringleader of the cult. The story is purely functionary and the film outright ignores it at times, focusing instead on eerie imagery. Like a man decapitated in shadow by the sudden a black-clad rider. A child's birthday party cut together with pictures of dismembered bodies. The red face of a painted devil appearing slowly over a man reading a book. So on and so forth.The satanic lodge reminds me of "Suspiria," with its checkered floors, and "The Masque of the Red Death," with the way the camera glides through the '70s puke-green painted walls. The movie is largely without music. Actually, there might not be any music before the fifty-five minute mark. The direction is frequently intentionally askew, creating an otherworldly feeling. There's even a sick sense of humor, when an elderly couple enter the lodge, pledge allegiance to Satan, and then chit-chat and tell jokes like this is an after-church bingo party.Like many of the Satanic cult films that followed, and "Rosemary's Baby" before it, "The Brotherhood of Satan" has a downbeat ending. Character actor Strother Martin screams madly about the devil while his cultists are stabbed to death by black-robed men with flaming swords. Evil triumphs and good arrives too late to stop it. It's hard to decide if the loose plotting was intentional. Either way, the film sustains a freaky atmosphere of seventies dread and packs a visual wallop.

This totally odd-ball feature is a typical and prime example of satanically shocking 70's horror. The events are thoroughly confusing and it takes up quite a while before you figure out what the hell is going on, but the brooding atmosphere sucks you in immediately. Right from the indescribably bizarre intro, showing a couple of eerie children turning toys into real-life war machinery, you just know this become an uncompromising and gritty shocker. "Brotherhood of Satan" soon appears to be another installment in the alleged & unofficial "creepy little town hiding a dark secret" sub genre. A young widower, traveling with his new yummy girlfriend and 8-year-old daughter, stops in a remote little town to report a car accident they witnessed on a nearby highway. The villagers behave very hostile and insist the visitors on leaving right away. The town clearly bathes in an ambiance of fear and panic, as local children vanish inexplicably vanished and unnatural forces maintain everyone within the boundaries of town. Hillsboro is in the grip of a satanic cult, apparently ruled by the elderly members of the community. I really liked "Brotherhood of Satan" a lot. The story reminded me of a novel written by John Saul, but I can't remember the title. It also dealt with a cult of elderly people abusing youthful villagers for their own greedy merits. The film mainly relies on creepy scenery (like dolls and witchcraft relics) but a slightly more involving and coherent screenplay would have been nice. The subject matter often raises a lot of issues and questions, and director Bernard McEveety can't always provide us with answers. The climax is terrific, very seventies (meaning shocking) and unforgettable. Beautifully shot film, too.

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!!!