What would a German ripoff of The Exorcist look like? That’s an important question to ask. And when I describe ripoffs of said film, I always say, “You know how in The Exorcist, it’s still somewhat of a classy movie. What if it wasn’t? Wouldn’t that be awesome?” Most people, sane people, at that point say, “No. I had no interest in seeing that at all.” For the rest of us, there are films like this.

In fact, Bill from Groovy Doom texted me late one night, asking if I had seen this film, knowing that it would be a movie that I would fall in love with.

Director Walter Boos is better known for his Schoolgirl Report exploitation films. But man, this movie…

We start with a prostitute arguing with several men in the streets before coming home to find a man crucified to the wall of her apartment building. I should also mention that her clothing is hideous, even for a prostitute character in a 1970’s German exploitation movie.

The dead man had visitors all hours of the day and night, including a woman with a giant dog and has only one living relative, his granddaughter…the titular character of this film. We find Magdalena in school, where they delay telling her the news until everyone can have a party. Again, as you do.

Magdalena elicits a Pavlovian response, as every time you hear the sound of flies buzzing, something completely maniacally insane is about to happen. Like the dead body of a man sitting up in the morgue. Or Magdalena frothing at the mouth and tearing her clothes off. Or a tiny dog losing its mind.

Actually, I live with a dog this angry all the time.

For the rest of the film, Magdalena alternates between being a virginal high school girl and being a complete lunatic. And would you really have it any other way? She goes from smashing dishes in a kitchen and kicking her way through doors to having sex with invisible demons in a no time at all.

Magdalena is fine and has to go to her grandfather’s funeral, who she loved when he was alive, but now that he’s gone, she yells, “I despise the dead!” She hitchhikes there, but when a driver tries to molest her while she sleeps, she kills him. And then goes back to school, where things get crazier. Of course.

Magdalena has another fit, during which she tears up a photo of her parents and tries to have sex with all of the old women who run the school before beating the shit out of every single one of them. Then she runs out of steam and the women slap her around way too many times for this to be comfortable.  Oh and I forgot — she’s naked the entire time.

That’s when Dr. Stone gets involved and runs tests on Magdalena because you need a scene in an Exorcist film where science can’t solve what faith can. That said, not many of these films have the doctor fall in love with his patient. Obviously, the rules about this kind of thing are much different in Germany.

Even though she’s found true love, that doesn’t mean Magdalena isn’t going to stop being possessed. She even appears nude to two brothers, making them fight one another in a bowling alley as she lies naked on a lane, begging for them to kill one another for her. Spoiler warning: one of them stabs the other and she disappears.

The rest of the film alternates between good and evil Magdalena, who even gets Stone to have sex with her (I mean, it wasn’t much of a stretch) and then claiming rape. Finally, the forces of good are able to get the evil of her grandfather out of her body. And how does that happen, you may ask? Well, she vomits up a snake and Stone steps on it.

Wow. Yeah, not since Enter the Devil have I watched a film so unafraid to be completely and utterly unhinged. Dagmar Hedrich only appeared in one other film than this and she goes utterly batshit lunacy in this, just a tornado of a performance. If you love possession films — and really, you should — grab this ASAP.

You can get a copy on Mill Creek’s Pure Terror box set that we unpacked in November 2019 — and we love this movie so much that we gave it another look with another take, for this is not your typical possession movie. Not by a long shot.

Warner Brothers’ lawyers must have had the best holiday season ever in 1974, thanks to all of the work they were getting shutting down ripoffs of The Exorcist. The success of Abby — $4 million in a month for its distributor, American International Pictures — led to the lawsuit that pulled all prints of the film. That’s probably why the copy I have has been battered to, well, hell and back.

From horrorpedia.com — Abby was a big success. Maybe too big for Warner Brothers’ comfort.

Directed by William Girder (Three on a Meathook, Jaws ripoff Grizzly, Day of the Animals and The Manitou), Abby is quite simply the African-American take on a possession film. Abby isn’t possessed by Satan, though. Nope, she is being taken over by Eshu, the West African trickster god, master of chaos and whirlwinds. Dr. Garrett Williams (William Marshall, not only Blacula but the King of Cartoons!) opens the film by explaining that Eshu is the most powerful of all earthly deities, the very embodiment of chaos. While on a Nigeria cave dig, he finds a puzzle box (I’d call it the Lamont Configuration, but would anyone get the Sanford and Son meets Hellraiser reference?) carved with phallic symbols. Once opened, a wind blows out that knocks the doctor and his men down, then travels the whole way to Louisville, Kentucky. There, it finds Abby, the wife of Dr. William’s son Emmett (Terry Cotter, Colonel Tighe from the original Battlestar Galactica).

Abby may have been a marriage counselor and a member of the church, but that’s all over. From cutting herself while making chicken to flipping out on anyone and everyone, Abby gets all the trademarks of possession, if those trademarks had the same voice as The Exorcist speaking in jive, calling people motherfuckers. When her husband tries to make love to her, she kicks him right in the balls. Also, Abby looks like a grey version of The Hulk when she is possessed. Basically, I just want you to know that everything Abby does is awesome and amazing and perfect.

Despite the efforts of white doctors and Dr. Williams, Abby escapes, sending a wind storm after everyone. Emmett runs after her, but since Abby has his car, he flags down a car. He then pulls a white woman out of the car and chases after her! Luckily, Abby’s brother, Cass, is a cop who is able to smooth all of this over. He’s played by Austin Stoker from the original Assault on Precinct 13 and Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

So where does Abby go? Why only to see some stock footage of Louisville’s finest clubs! Abby even tries to hook up with a bunch of guys who can’t satisfy her, so she kills them (but not before we get a dizzying POV shot of possessed Abby). The first dude literally gets killed when the car he was making out with Abby bounces up and down while smoke comes out of the windows.

Abby is on the make with a white guy who talks like WC Fields, but her husband and brother are on the hunt, searching through bars and b-roll footage!

They find her in a bar where she turns the entire bar against her husband before her brother starts shooting his gun up in the air. But oh shit — Dr. Williams shows up to battle it out with Abby!

Luckily, everything works out and Abby is saved. I mean, sure, a few people died along the way and some lady got carjacked and may never get over it. But people — Abby is fine and that’s all that matters.

Carol Speed is awesome in this film. And she wasn’t even the first choice for the title role! She won the role after the original actress was fired after demanding an on set masseuse! She even wrote her own song, “Is Your Soul a Witness?” that she sings in one of the church scenes. She also mentioned that the film was cursed, thanks to plenty of accidents, sickness and even tornadoes that tore through the set. Supposedly, generators would fail whenever she was in makeup, but I’d chalk these stories up as complete Hollywood carny bullshit. Which is to say, yes, totally, this movie was cursed and African penis gods rained insanity down on the set!

Based on a series of Canadian murders and the urban legend of calls coming to a babysitter from within the house (also see When a Stranger Calls), Bob Clark and A. Roy Moore created what many feel is one of the precursors to the slasher film genre.

Bedford is a small college town, complete with a sorority house filled with victims, err, characters. While they’re celebrating at a holiday party, Jess (Olivia Hussey, who was told by her psychic to do this movie) gets a phone call from “The Moaner,” a crank caller who has been bothering the other sisters: Barb (Margot Kidder, Sisters), Phyllis (Andrea Martin, SCTV) and Clare (Lynne Griffin, Strange Brew). Barb is a real firecracker, provoking the caller, who tells the girls that he will kill them all.

Clare goes upstairs to pack and is suffocated by plastic wrap by an unseen killer and placed on a rocking chair in the attic.

The next day, Clare’s dad comes to take her back home for Christmas. The girls and their housemother, Mrs. MacHenry (Marian Waldman, Phobia), are surprised, as they thought she already went home. While all that is going on, Jess tells her boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea, 2001: A Space Odyssey) that she is getting an abortion. He argues with her but can’t change her mind.

Meanwhile, the police get involved after learning that another girl, Janice, has gone missing. Jess also tells Chris (Arthur Hindle, Porky’s), Clare’s boyfriend, that something is up.

While everyone else joins police lieutenant Fuller (John Saxon!) to search for the missing girls, Mrs. Mac is killed inside the house. Sadly, her life of hiding booze and yelling at everyone was cut short. As the girls return home, they find Jess’ body and get another obscene call, which she reports to the police, who decide to bug the line so they can trace the calls. Then, Peter sneaks into the house for another argument.

Black Christmas is unafraid of using holiday traditions to allow its killer to get away with murder. While carolers sing outside, Barb’s screams go unheard as she is stabbed to death by a glass unicorn.

Another phone call happens — one that quotes the argument Jess had with Peter. And while that’s occurring, Phyl goes to check on Barb and is killed.

Finally, Jess keeps the obscene caller on the line long enough for a trace, which reveals that the calls are coming from inside the house. She goes upstairs, armed with a fireplace poker, to get the rest of the girls, only to find their dead bodies. The killer chases her into the cellar and when Peter appears outside the window, she assumes that he is the killer and murders him with the poker.

The police arrive to find Jess sitting with Peter’s dead body. They’re convinced that he is the killer, although they can’t find Clare or Mrs. Mac’s bodies. After she is sedated, the cops leave while one officer remains behind to wait for forensics. Then, we hear a voice whisper, “Agnes, it’s me, Billy.” Jess’ phone rings, which means her fate — and who the killer is — will remain a mystery.

One of the most frightening parts of the film are the obscene phone calls, which were performed by Clark and actor Nick Mancuso (Under Siege), who stood on his head while recording to make his voice sound more insane. Mancuso would come back to record a “Billy Commentary” on the film, which is on the recent Scream Factory! release.

Warner Brother studio executives hated the ending and demanding that Clark change the final scene to have Chris appear before Jess and say, “Agnes, don’t tell them what we did” before murdering her. However, Clark stuck to his guns and kept the ending that he believed in. The studio further tinkered with the film, calling it Silent Night, Evil Night in its original release.

When NBC aired the film as Stranger in the House on the January 28, 1978 edition of Saturday Night at the Movies, it gave stations the option of airing Doc Savage, as the Ted Bundy murders had just occurred two weeks earlier.

There’s an urban legend that this was Elvis’ favorite horror movie. It definitely made an impression on Steve Martin, who told Olivia Hussey “Oh my God, Olivia, you were in one of my all-time favorite films” when she was being considered for Roxanne. She thought he meant Romeo and Juliet, but he told her that he meant Black Christmas, claiming that he had seen the film 27 times.

There’s another urban legend — how many can one film have — that says that Halloween was originally intended as a sequel to this movie.

Clark would go on to direct Porky’s and a film that failed at first before becoming a holiday tradition, 1983’s A Christmas Story. Yep — he pretty much made both the happiest and darkest films about the Yuletide, which is pretty awesome.

I love this movie. It’s a true classic that’s unafraid to go against conventions even as it creates them. Nearly every actor and actress in this movie went on to do more and play their roles perfectly here.

You can watch it on Shudder or grab the Scream Factory collectors edition blu-ray!

While we often feature dark films here, Becca and I love Clark’s other holiday film, too. Here’s some proof, as we toured Ralphie’s house in Cleveland, OH.

The decoder ring was there and yes, the soap had teeth marks in it.

There are rip-offs of The Exorcist. And then there are rip-offs where copyright infringement lawsuits lead to Warner Brothers getting a cash settlement and a portion of the film’s future revenue. Beyond the Door would be the latter. It’s $40 million worldwide gross meant that this film would a film draw the ire and call of that most Satanic of all monsters, the suits and the lawyers.

Directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis, who wrote 1979’s most insane film The Visitor and directed Tentacles and Madhouse (and he was also CEO of Cannon, producing films like Lambada and American Ninja 5), the film opens with Satan literally speaking, promising to give a man ten more years of life if he knocks up a woman. Oh yeah — there’s also a naked female on a light up crucifix.

Jessica Barrett (Juliet Mills, TV’s Nanny and the Professor) is pregnant with her third child, which leads to the typical symptoms — strange voices, throwing up blood, screaming all night long. You know — the normal stuff.

Her other kids are also impacted by all this Satanic panic going on in the Barrett house, as her husband Robert (Gabriele Lavia, Deep Red) tries to help. Turns out an old lover, Dmitri (Richard Johnson, Dr. Menard from Zombi!) has something to do with all of this, as he’s the man Satan was speaking to in the opening of the film. He offers to help Jessica, but he’s really trying to ensure that her baby is born because it’s gonna be the Antichrist (DUM DUM DUM)!

The possessor ends up killing Dmitri after asking him to reach into Jessica and pull out her baby. She vomits blackness all over his face, so he starts banging on her stomach while yelling, “LIES! LIES LIES!” So the devil sends him back over that cliff in his car, killing him.

A dove flies by as we find Jessica on a boat, covered with a robe and wearing sunglasses. She has lost the baby but regained her life. Children run and play everywhere. Meanwhile, we cut to a young child unwrapping a gift, which contains a red car. He tosses it overboard, revealing that he’s the Antichrist. Or maybe he’s Jessica’s kid? Who knows. Who can say? He does have glowing eyes, so there’s that.

Beyond the Door zigs where The Exorcist zags. Instead of “Tubular Bells,” we get 70’s funk. Instead of priests, we get weird ex-lovers. Instead of kids being possessed, here they are just foul-mouthed little bastards.

But hey — the ad campaign for this film is memorable, even if the film isn’t!

This movie is literally the center of the Venn Diagram that would be made of the movies that I love the most.

Italian ripoff of a successful film — This movie is obviously trying to be The Exorcist.

Satanism — This film has some of the goofiest and most awesome devil tricks of any of I’ve seen.

Exploitation — No one in this film acts like a normal human being and reality has been supplanted by insanity before the demons even get involved.

Multiple titles — This film is also known as Sexorcist, The Tormented, Devil Obsession, L’Ossessa and was later re-released post-Rocky Horror midnight movie success in 1977 as The Eerie Midnight Horror Show.

And the title card that comes up before the movie begins: THIS FILM IS BASED ON A TRUE STORY.

Daniela is an art student in Italy who is so respected by her teachers that she gets to join them as they acquire religious sculptures from a church due to be torn down. That church was deconsecrated way back in the 1700’s because the priests and nuns decided that they would turn against God and start having orgies in the church. And one of the statues, an incredibly lifelike display of one of the thieves crucified next to Jesus, catches Daniela’s eye. She is told that it was pulled directly from a tree, that it was already inside the wood and all the sculptor had to do was bring out the details. However, many tourists have had mental breakdowns just looking at this sculpture.

Daniela’s life is weird even before the crazy gets started. Her rich parents throw a party and we learn that her mother isn’t just cheating on her husband, she’s doing it pretty much in public. Yep — Daniela catches her mother getting whipped by the thorns of a rose — a scene that Becca just randomly walked into and asked, “What are you watching?!?”

Our heroine leaves for her studio at the university. As she paints, the sculpture comes off the cross in a scene that can only come from the deranged mind of Italian exploitation filmmaking (director Mario Gariazzo wrote Sister Emanuelle and directed Very Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind). Of course, that revived religious icon then has sex with her, sex that appears to be a dream as she runs from the studio.

Later that night, as Daniela climbs the stairs to her family’s apartment, she keeps thinking she is alone, but the sounds of her footsteps don’t match up. She hears a demon whisper her name and she runs in fear before the demon overcomes her, forcing her into a state of sexual mania and a dream where she is crucified. She spends the rest of the movie trying to get anyone to have sex with her while stigmata appears on her hands and she does all of the tropes of exorcism rip-offs.

And then Ivan Rassimov (All the Colors of the Dark, Shock/Beyond the Door II, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key ) shows up as Satan, giving Daniela her beauty back so that she can work with him to tempt all of the priests, like Father Xeno (Luigi Pistilli, Oliviero from Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key). She tries to seduce him, so to forget that she has tempted him he self-flagellates.

The priest dies and the girl is saved, after she pukes out the demon. But you knew that, right? You’ve seen this film repeated before. But that doesn’t mean that this film isn’t great. And by great, I mean the scummiest version of everything you love about films like this. No matter title you refer to it by, it is everything you want to see.

There are lost movies because pieces of them have been lost, such as the original ending of Hammer’s Horror of Dracula, and lost movies because they should remain lost. Such is the case with Son of Dracula.

Directed by Freddie Francis, who was at the helm for The Evil of Frankenstein, Dracula has Risen from His Grave, Tales from the Crypt and Doctor and the Devils and produced by Apple Films, this is a film that seems like a great idea. This seems to be an ongoing theme with films that I pick to cover here.

Ringo Starr wanted to be in movies, which explains why he produced and appeared as Merlin the Magician. Yes, that Merlin. So here’s where Ringo is, well, Ringo. He played on Harry Nilsson’s Son of Schmilsson in 1972, which was inspired by horror movies. A few months later, Ringo invited Nilsson to be part of this film. You — as well as Nilsson — would assume that that album would be the reason. And the answer is nope. Ringo never bought the album he played on and had no idea how close the themes were to his proposed movie.

Nilsson was on the top of his game as this movie was being lensed, thanks to songs like Coconut, Without You and Jump into the Fire. He was also growing closer to John Lennon, becoming part of the notorious Hollywood Vampires gang that would go out and well, never come back home ( In fact, Nilsson was present for much of Lennon’s “lost period.”). Some claim that Nilsson was the craziest of the bunch and seeing as how this club included notorious partiers Alice Cooper, Ringo Starr, Micky Dolenz, John Belushi, Marc Bolan, Keith Moon, and Joe Walsh, that’s high praise indeed.If you have any question as to the drinking power of the Vampires, there’s still a plaque at the legendary second home of Lemmy, the Rainbow on Sunset, that proclaims that the loft belongs to them.

So let’s add it up. Well regarded horror director. One of the Beatles on board. And one of the top pop singers in the starring role. How could things go wrong?

Let me try and sum up this tale: Count Downe (if you are amused by this, then you’re ready for this film) takes over for all the world’s monsters when his father is killed. Merlin and Dr. Frankenstein advise him, but he just wants to play with his band and get laid. He wants to be human and turns to Van Helsing. He falls in love with Helsing’s nubile assistant, becomes human and everyone lives happily ever after.

I’m sorry if I’ve somehow made this more coherent than it will ever truly be. What ended up on film is a collection of scenes, travelogue footage and plenty of Nilsson visiting bars like Tramp. Oh yeah — he also plays with his band, which features Keith Moon, John Bonham, Peter Frampton, Klaus Voorman (who wasn’t just in the Plastic Ono Band, he designed the album cover for Revolver), Leon Russell and Rolling Stones horn section Bobby Keys and Jim Price. To be perfectly honest, the band is awesome and these scenes have plenty of life. They also have nothing at all to do with the movie and happen so frequently, you wonder why they didn’t just film a concert instead of this.

Once filmed, this sat on the shelf for years. In fact, Starr commissioned Graham Chapman, Douglas Adams and Bernard McKenna to completely redub the dialogue. The film kind of sort of played small towns and it wasn’t until 1982 when Nilsson himself brought a VHS of the fim to a Beatles convention that many saw it.

However, in 2015, this film played at the ninth annual Drive-in Super Monster Rama at the Riverside Drive-in, Vandergrift, PA. There’s probably no better way to see this movie than to wake up in a car with a rainstorm outside, still somewhat buzzed from a variety of substances and launch into it half awake at 4 AM. Yep — just before dawn and barely awake, I found myself enduring one of the true lost movies.

Is it good? Gosh, no.

Is it interesting? Completely. It makes so little sense that you just watch it slack jawed and staring.

Is it available on DVD? No, of course not. There’s a good quality one on YouTube and it shows up as a bootleg at conventions. Surely I would not have bought my DVD that way.

That said, everyone came out of this pretty much fine. Nilsson would gradually became more concerned with art than being commercial. I say fine, but then I am reminded that Mama Cass and Keith Moon both died at his Mayfair flat and he died young himself.

Other folks fared better. Jennifer Jayne, the writer (amazingly, this has one) also wrote Tales that Witness Madness, also directed by Freddie Francis. Years later, Francis would find a second career as a cinematographer, working on The Elephant Man, Cape Fear and Glory. He also worked on Dune with Freddie Jones, who plays the Baron here.

Dennis Price, who plays Van Helsing, would go on to work with Jess Franco and play in many a horror film in his golden years.

There’s even a soundtrack album, which appeared in cut out bins for years. It has a great iron-on and plenty of good songs.

I’ve been surprised before that lost movies make it to blu ray. But I’ll be shocked if this mess ever sees the light of day. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek it out. It’s an experience, at the very least.

This article originally appeared at That’s Not Current. Read it at http://www.thatsnotcurrent.com/look-back-son-dracula-1974/