Director: Peter Sykes
Screenplay: Chris Wicking, John Peacock and Gerald Vaughan-Hughes, based on the novel To the Devil - a Daughter by Dennis Wheatley
Starring: Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee, Honor Blackman, Nastassja Kinski, Denholm Elliott,
Running Time: 95 minutes
Genre: Horror
John Verney (Widmark), an American horror author living in London, is asked by an old acquaintance, Henry Beddows (Elliott), to collect his teenage daughter, Catherine (Kinski), from the airport. Catherine is a nun who has lived her entire life with a mysterious heretical order in Bavaria, under the control of the sinister priest, Father Michael Rayner (Lee). Verner soon discovers that Rayner plans to make Catherine the vessel for a demonic manifestation.
By the late 1970s Hammer Films were becoming out of date. With bigger budget and more graphic American horror films coming out of major studios and dealing with contemporary fears, Hammer was becoming quaint and obsolete. To the Devil a Daughter was their effort to hitch on to the success of films such as The Exorcist (1974). The film is watchable enough, and it has some entertaining moments. However the film lacks the campy sense of fun of the studio's previous Dennis Wheatley adaptation, The Devil Rides Out (1968). It features a supposedly terrifying monster, which is very obviously a cheap puppet, and a ludicrously sudden conclusion. Hollywood veteran Richard Widmark is a fairly unengaging lead and Christopher Lee is wasted in the chief villain role. Nastassja Kinski (who was still a teenager at the time) does well with her role as Catherine, however she does have a nude scene which leaves a pretty bad taste in the mouth and sours the whole enterprise. Particularly as Kinski has said that she was bullied into doing the scene.
Dennis Wheatley branded the film "obscene" and banned Hammer from ever again adapting any of his books.
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