This regional oddity was written and directed by Houston native Frank Q. Dobbs. It has nothing to do with the other film that uses this title, which is better known as The Eerie Midnight Horror Show. Instead, it’s all about a woman who is doing a reference book on cults of the world, which leads her to the dust bowl of the American Southwest, a place where extremist Christians sacrifice human beings.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x54w6nj

Of course, it takes 40 minutes of languid screentime before the heroine shows up in Terlingua, Texas. But until then, there’s plenty of beer drinking, innuendo and red robed cultists, who are known as The Penitentes, a centuries-old fraternal — and fanatical — brotherhood.

The pace seems so slow that when things actually start happening, it’s really shocking. Nothing happens in this film at an expected pace and nothing is cliche. It’s all unexpected.

This was lost for a long time before Something Weird released one of the most scratched up prints ever.  Luckily, Massacre Video has cleaned this all up and released a proper version that you can get from Diabolik DVD.