A soft-core sex film masquerading as a horror movie, Black Candles sees Spanish director José Ramón Larraz-the man responsible for cult erotic Euro-horror classic Vampyres-using the themes of Satanism and witchcraft as an excuse to depict as much sexual depravity as possible. While he doesn't quite stray into graphic Jess Franco territory, steering well clear of gynaecological close-ups, Larraz still manages to seriously steam up the screen with wall-to-wall lesbian and hetero sex. Plus a little something for animal lovers
The film starts as it means to go one, with a sex scene between a balding middle-aged man and a young woman half his age; as the guy happily bangs away, someone uses a voodoo doll to give him a fatal coronary. On hearing of her brother's sudden death, Carol (Vanessa Hidalgo) travels to England with her husband Robert (Mauro Rivera) to stay with her sister-in-law Fiona while the estate is settled. What Carol doesn't know is that Fiona is part of a devil-worshipping cult that wants her to become a bride to Satan.
Although obviously inspired by Rosemary's Baby, Black Candles has none of that film's suspense or atmosphere-it's simply one sleazy sex scene after another: Robert screws Carol, Carol screws her brother (in an incestuous dream sequence), Fiona screws Robert, the local reverend screws Fiona, a goat screws a farm-girl (not too explicit, but still rather shocking), Robert screws Carol up the wrong 'un, a farmer screws his wife who proceeds to screw the farm-hand while the farmer shouts encouragement, and in the orgiastic Satanic ritual finalé, the reverend screws Carol while everyone else screws around them! Phew!
After all this rampant humping, plus a memorably nasty scene in which the farmer gets a sword rammed up his jacksie, the film wraps up matters with a disappointing cop-out ending which reveals that everything we have seen has been a dream (making the incestuous dream a dream-within-a-dream), but one that may be a portent of things to come.
The film starts as it means to go one, with a sex scene between a balding middle-aged man and a young woman half his age; as the guy happily bangs away, someone uses a voodoo doll to give him a fatal coronary. On hearing of her brother's sudden death, Carol (Vanessa Hidalgo) travels to England with her husband Robert (Mauro Rivera) to stay with her sister-in-law Fiona while the estate is settled. What Carol doesn't know is that Fiona is part of a devil-worshipping cult that wants her to become a bride to Satan.
Although obviously inspired by Rosemary's Baby, Black Candles has none of that film's suspense or atmosphere-it's simply one sleazy sex scene after another: Robert screws Carol, Carol screws her brother (in an incestuous dream sequence), Fiona screws Robert, the local reverend screws Fiona, a goat screws a farm-girl (not too explicit, but still rather shocking), Robert screws Carol up the wrong 'un, a farmer screws his wife who proceeds to screw the farm-hand while the farmer shouts encouragement, and in the orgiastic Satanic ritual finalé, the reverend screws Carol while everyone else screws around them! Phew!
After all this rampant humping, plus a memorably nasty scene in which the farmer gets a sword rammed up his jacksie, the film wraps up matters with a disappointing cop-out ending which reveals that everything we have seen has been a dream (making the incestuous dream a dream-within-a-dream), but one that may be a portent of things to come.