Satan's Sadists Year: 1969 Director: Al Adamson Written by: Dennis Wayne Threat: Motorcycle Gang Weapon of Choice: Toilet IMDb page:

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Rish's Reviews
This is hardly a horror film, really. I saw it with my bald friend as a double bill with something called Northville Cemetery Massacre or Freedom R.I.P. or another title entirely, depending on who you asked. The theme was no-budget exploitation biker pictures, and while I couldn't in good conscience review both of them for the site, I figured this was the more appropriate of the two.
But if it's not Horror, then what is it? Okay, okay, you got me. It's Horror. Just Horror on par with Last House on the Left or Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer or The Hills Have Eyes, where the monsters are human beings.
The Haunting and "Twin Peaks"'s Russ Tamblyn is the leader of a hateful pack of maurading, trouble-making bikers out in Nowheresville, California. When a hitchhiking Vietnam Vet, a good-natured waitress, a pair of young women, and a friendly middle-aged couple run afoul of the biker gang at a combination gas station/diner, it's a fight for survival miles away from help or safety.
Aka Nightmare Bloodbath (really), Satan's Sadists was mega cheap, non-professional, and semi-poorly done. Day was shot for night and it was always natural lighting and audio. Sometimes the sound was so bad the dialogue was near-unintelligible. The acting fared better, or maybe I just wasn't paying attention. Also, there was a completely inappropriate sprinkling of bad folk songs throughout the flick, including a laughable tearjerker ballad called "Satan." The bikers were a disparate bunch with individual personalities and moralities, and I could imagine a drive-in audience cheering every time one of them met his well-earned demise (drive-ins must have been pretty neat). The film was apparently quite successful (its producer was there and talked at length about what a labor of love it was and the fondness with which he looks back on it), though it seems hard for an audience of today to understand that.
This has the distinction of being the first horror movie I've seen where practically every single female character gets naked.
Okay, you got me. The first horror movie without "Sorority" in the title.
There was a really lovely good-girl character, and I naturally didn't want anything to happen to her. Everyone else is raped and murdered. It was unpleasant and pretty nasty in the way a lot of the films of this era were, when the code restrictions had been lifted and pretty much anything went. Even so, seeing it was an interesting experience (though not nearly as entertaining as Freedom R.I.P.).
Best Scare: Since the film pulled few punches, I did feel anxious for the characters, particularly the female ones. One highpoint of the film was when our hero scoops up a rattlesnake with a stick and throws it in the face of one of the attacking bikers. Not an ideal way to go, I'd think.
I'd Recommend It To: Look, you'll never find this film at your local Ballbuster Video, and there's NO chance you'll get to see it like I did. If you're interested in this sort of thing, and you manage to track it down, you might enjoy yourself.
Posted: March 14, 2005

Total Skulls: 20

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film		Easy Rider (and its ilk)
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?