From B.J. Creators (!) comes Satan’s Mistress, a tawdry tale “based on the unusual experiences of a Northern California woman. As passion and love, once the cornerstones of her marriage, eroded, this woman became desperately lonely. There is a growing belief that in the world of psychic phenomena, the loneliness of a human being may be our direct link to…..the supernatural.”
Bond girl Britt Ekland (The Man with the Golden Gun) may be top-billed, but top-heavy Bond girl Lana Wood (Diamonds Are Forever) is the true chewy center of this bland possession confection. As Lisa, Wood is a housewife with a loving teen daughter (Sherry Scott, Swim Team) and a cruel husband (Don Galloway, Two Moon Junction) who prefers to insult her (“Pushy bitch!”) than inseminate her. That leaves Lisa high and dry and horny as hell.
Enter stage left: an evil spirit to take care of all that. First appearing as a crudely animated purple blob that looks like it escaped from the druggiest of John and Faith Hubley shorts, it pulls the bedsheets off Lisa’s nude body and goes to town. Strange things soon occur throughout the household, like tchotchkes tumbling to the floor and the family cat turning aggressive, but mostly, the story is about the sex. Once the spirit manifests in human, mustachioed form (Kabir Bedi, Octopussy), even more closed-door fornicating is had, with Lisa brought to orgasm every. Damn. Time.
Satan’s Mistress (alternately known under the name Demon Rage) may have beaten the über-similar The Entity to American theater screens in a sprint, but has lost the marathon of public consciousness. If you felt embarrassed for Barbara Hershey’s naked writhings as she was ghost-raped in that film, prepare to have that multiplied, because Wood was clearly hired here for two reasons: to be exploited. From her opening nightmare running slo-mo in a silky nightgown to a climax that sees a demon tearing said gown off her body, and with every coupling in between, director James Polakof (The Vals) takes care to present his star as boobzapoppin’ as possible, because let’s be honest: She’s quite lovely, and that’s all the movie has going for it. She appears to be okay with the gratuitousness of the proceedings, perhaps because the opportunity was one her superstar sister, Natalie, never would take. Either way, if “degradation” weren’t already spelled with double Ds, Wood’s pulchritudinous presence would merit an edit to the ol’ Funk & Wagnalls. —Rod Lott