A New York couple are lured to a masked party, held at the large house of an evil occultist who has set his sights on the wife. Very low budget, bad acting and a plot that could be written on a postage stamp this ticks the boxes for viewers seeking 1970's grindhouse trash. One of the movie's strongest points is the ever present, eerie synth score. This combines well with several surreal, nightmare like sequences. Some of the make up is OK too. Two things that I didn't like are - 1 - no nudity, which was unusuall for black magic films from this decade, and 2 - despite the title I never once heard the name "Satan" get a mention, instead some Lord Rakeesh, or something, is the demon to which the cult is dedicated. A name that I am not familiar with. Yes, this is trashy but it is still far more enjoyable that most of the horror movies being churned out in the 21st Century.

Apparently, Deep Throat director Gerard Damiano's only non-XXX film was shot with hardcore sequences, but the distributor decided to cut them out and release the film as a regular Grindhouse horror (it played in a double bill with Andy Milligan's Blood); this goes some way to explaining the film's truncated running time (barely 70 mins), haphazard plotting and naff acting. Yet despite the film's shortcomings, it is worth catching as it makes the case that Damiano was a considerable visual stylist, a fine editor and an auteur in possession of a somewhat depressing worldview which runs through much of his work.

Legacy of Satan tells the story of a sexually repressed housewife who is targeted by a group of Satanists, who worship a Satan called Rakeesh; the louche bunch of wealthy degenerates put the voodoo on her, and soon she's lying in her previously frigid marital bed with her snatch burning up the sheets. A friend, who happens to be a member of the sect, invites her and her husband to a fancy dress party at the Satanists' pad, and our heroine is inducted into a world of wickedness. The husband, dressed as Harlequin, attempts to save her with what looks to be a light sabre (did Lucas see this?!) but wifey by this time has gone over to the dark side, and colludes in hubby's bumping off. Yet the wages of sin is death, in this case a disfiguring skin cancer which melts the face of the head Satanist and finally infects our lady heroine.

The idea that repressed white-bread ladies harbour devilish lusts inside them was explored more fully, and effectively, in Damiano's The Devil in Miss Jones; as in that film, the heroine is punished for her transgressions but we're not left feeling that good has triumphed, just that the end of sexual freedom is exhaustion and, in this case, disease. There's something of a prophecy of AIDS in the skin cancer, which makes Damiano not just the pusher but the Jeremiah of 70s decadence.

In terms of the film's look, the director and his cinematographer do a fine job on a limited budget – the shots are effectively composed, with a fine use of bleeding psychedelic colours and atmospheric lighting. There's a particularly hallucinatory sequence where the heroine runs through the mansion which has an Alice in Wonderland, or rather Middleton's Through the Looking Glass, feel about it. Best of all is the relentless electronic score by Arlon Ober and Mel Zelniker, at times mere spooky clichés but at others reaching almost Throbbing Gristle-like proportions of intensity. Damiano, unfortunately, writes pretty wretched dialogue then lumbers himself with actors who deliver his lines like a school play – but Legacy of Satan is, especially for the first 50 minutes, a weird and intense experience with a genuinely malevolent air; it feels like it's been somewhere near Satan, which is some kind of achievement I suppose.

If you have the DVD which is part of the Blood Bath 2 collection and are watching on a widecreen TV, zoom in and watch it in 16:9, as Damiano clearly shot it on 16mm expecting it to be blown up and cropped, and it's an open matte print used on the DVD; Damiano's framing in this ratio never looks less than intriguing.

I viewed this on Tubi, which is the kind of place you'd find movies of this ilk. Seventies exploitation to be sure, with all the baggage that that moniker entails. There's a wisp of a narrative, something about a housewife being selected by a devil-worshipping cult to be their queen. Attractive cast, especially lead actress Linda Christian, who capably handles the material, such as it is--and The Philadelphia Story it ain't! Since this was filmed in 1972, we get the usual barrage of groovy fashions and home furnishings, a treat for fans of retro stuff. The synth score is a double-edged sword, irritating in some scenes, but rather atmospheric in others, particularly the black mass scenes. These scenes are probably the most compelling in the whole film. Over-ripe monologues, moody lighting, and the previously mentioned score (augmented by some eerie Gregorian chants) all make for some effective viewing. The DP and cinematographer both must have had a purple fetish, because there are several scenes where that particular color is emphasized. Maybe the director was shooting for an art film aesthetic, with some of the kooky angles, shooting a dialogue scene through the gauzy veil of a poster bed, etc. Looks great in the Code Red transfer, and doesn't overstay it's welcome