Pizza delivery people encounter a lot of weird people when on the clock, but most probably aren’t honored to be chosen as the centerpiece of a satanic ritual, the future bride of the devil’s son. Satanic Panic is an amusing B-grade horror film that doesn’t have a lot of lasting power but offers enough creative death sequences and gore to appeal to horror fans who are satisfied by creative death sequences and gore.
Satanic Panic, the feature debut of Chelsea Stardust, is a rough-around-the-edges horror film with more than a few touches of humor. It won’t win any style points, but what it lacks in finesse it makes up for with in-your-face schlock. Hayley Griffith is pretty good in the lead, playing the involuntary virgin who accidentally makes her “condition” known to a group of rich devil worshippers.
What ensues is an amusing bit in which good ol’ Jerry O’Connell offers to have sex with her to save her (not the worst proposition in the world, though his approach and timing could be improved), and later a scene in which a woman accidentally kills her friend with a gigantic, rotating screw strap-on, and then electrocutes herself when her strap-on thrusts through drywall.
Just to give you a sense of the tone of the movie.
Satanic Panic lost me a bit towards the conclusion–Stardust chooses to take a weird turn or two that for whatever reason didn’t blow me away–but at only 85 minutes, the movie is a breezy burst of bloody mayhem.
Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.