Review of To the Devil a Daughter (1976) by Gordon B — 31 Mar 2012

Something of a missed opportunity for Hammer this has much higher production values than their previous efforts and uses some pretty well known actors from the 70's in one of their last hurrahs. Unfortunately despite their best efforts to create their own version of 'Rosemary's Baby' mixed with 'The Exorcist' they are let down by a poor script and a damp squid of an ending.

The whole thing looks like it's building up to some great confrontation between Lee and Widmark but as soon as Widmark throws a stone at Lee it is all over. What a let-down! Kinski is very young here and her acting is a bit dodgy (as she is forced to do a completely pointless nude scene at the end) but Lee, Blackman and Goodliffe are good and Elliott does a very good nutter impression.

Widmark has obviously been brought in to attract the American market but really Hammer should have gone for someone a bit younger like Hackman or Finney (probably out of their budget) as his presence here doesn't really add anything and his motives are never really clear.

In the end the whole thing looks like it's been heavily edited to cut the running time but this leaves too many plot-holes and despite the running time the film still drags. One for hardened Hammer fans only.