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Released by: Severin Films
Released on: September 25th, 2007.
Director: Mario Bianchi
Cast: Jaqueline Dupré, Marina Hedman, Aldo Sambrell
Year: 1982
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Satan’s Baby Doll – Movie Reviews:
From the writer of Burial Ground and Mondo Cane Oggi and the director of Emanuelle In The Country comes Satan’s Baby Doll, a remake of Andrea Bianchi’s 1979 sex-possession film, Malabimba The Malicious Whore.
The film follows a young woman named Myra (Jacqueline Dupré) whose mother drops dead during a séance. When she and a few other family members notice mom’s corpse twitching and wiggling on her designated slab in the old crypt where she was laid to rest, they understandably start to wonder if something is amiss. Despite some reassurance from the family doctor, who tells them that it’s just one of the mysteries of the human body, Myra begins to act rather unusually towards some of the other family members.
Soon, Myra is completely under the control of her late mother, whose spirit is using her nubile young body to run amok around the family home, seducing various relatives and generally getting herself into trouble, killing off various supporting characters and leaving a few family members wondering just what the heck is going on with the poor girl. Hopefully a nun named Solo (Mariangela Giordano best known as that chick from Burial Ground) can save the day.
Stylish and sleazy enough to work on a completely visual level, Satan’s Baby Doll just isn’t as interesting as Malabimba The Malicious Whore. The film definitely has its moments and a few stand out set pieces such as the old man of the family being chased to his death and a strange moment with a mummy/zombie but the story is lacking. At seventy-four minutes in length the picture moves at a decent pace despite a couple of slow moments but this comes at the expense of the character development. We wind up not really knowing enough about Myra or her late mother to really care about what happens to them or to really sympathize with them and instead the film relies on its sleazy set pieces to work. While this doesn’t make for a particularly deep film, it does mean that we’re treated to a little girlish self-pleasure action, some Sapphic coupling, a bit of gore here and there and some cool murders all playing out in a great gothic location and shot with no small amount of style.
Obviously short on plot, the film is at least an entertaining trash movie featuring a fairly manic lead performance from Dupré and a pretty remarkable score courtesy of Nico Catanese. Much of the film is made up of bump and grind scenes, intended to be erotic but coming off as more comedic than anything else, but in keeping with the spirit of exploitation these scenes don’t really feel out of place even if they are obviously intended to pad out an already brief running time to just barely feature length.
Satan’s Baby Doll – DVD Review:
Severin’s anamorphic widescreen transfer of Satan’s Baby Doll looked great in 2007 when it came out, and holds up fine for an older standard definition offering. There’s a little bit of grain noticeable in a few of the darker scenes but aside from that the picture is quite clean and clear and there are no major print damage problems to report. Mpeg compression artifacts are never an issue and only a hint of aliasing is present. Color reproduction is strong and flesh tones look lifelike and natural. Detail levels are quite solid and really, the movie looks surprisingly crisp on this DVD.
The sole audio option on this release is a Dolby Digital Mono track in Italian with optional subtitles provided in English only. While the track sounds a little flat in some spots, there aren’t any problems with hiss or distortion to complain about and the levels are properly balanced. The score sounds quite good and dialogue is clear and concise. The subtitles are free of typos and easy to read.
The primary supplement on this release is an eighteen minute interview with director Mario Bianchi entitled Exorcism Of Baby Doll. Conducted in Italian and presented with burned in English subtitles, Bianchi comes across as quite amicable as he talks about how he got his start in the Italian film industry and working with Lucio Fulci. He also talks about how he tried to take the story that was first told in Malabimba and put his own stamp on the material. It’s interesting stuff and it’s nice to see Bianchi get a bit of a tribute with this featurette.
Rounding out the supplements are the film’s original Italian theatrical trailer (in anamorphic widescreen), some static menus and a chapter selection sub-menu..
Satan’s Baby Doll – The Final Word:
Satan’s Baby Doll has plenty of style and some interesting, quirky visuals but sadly it’s not nearly as interesting a film as its title would lead you to believe despite an abundance of skin and some genuinely sleazy moments. That said, Severin has done a fine job on the DVD (even if this one really needs a proper Blu-ray release), as it looks and sounds quite nice and the interview with Bianchi is quite interesting.