The Devil’s Plaything

The Devil’s Plaything follows four women and a man who all end up at a spooky castle. Unknown to them, this castle is being run by a Satanic cult. Said cult’s purpose (other than a lot of naked dancing just for the fun of it, presumably) is to resurrect the spirit of Baroness Dania Varga who was burned alive in the 17th century under charges that she was a vampire and witch. The cult’s devious plan is to reincarnate Varga into the body of one of the nubile young women who have come to stay in the castle. The rest of the guests shall be her victims.

The Devil’s Plaything has more ideas than most of the 1970’s supernatural sleaze-fests I’ve seen. I mean, there’s both vampires AND witches. Most movies would be happy with just one. Genuinely, there are some good and interesting ideas the movie puts forth. There’s an entire backstory the movie has about Baroness Varga. There’s also a fair amount of witchcraft beyond just dancing naked and chanting (though there is a lot of that). On paper at least, The Devil’s Plaything had a lot of story and ideas.

None of these aforementioned ideas translate into the screen. My god, this movie is slow. Even something which had significantly less story than this like Girl Slaves of Morgana Le Fay didn’t seem to drag as much as this movie. The pacing is really bad. If anything, maybe it’s because there’s too much story. The movie’s focus still isn’t story, it’s showing naked ladies and semi-frequent murder. But these exploitative bits of the witches dancing nude or people putting candles where they shouldn’t be used stops the plot dead in its tracks. However, when the movie returns to focus on plot, it tends to introduce something new or jump to focus on a different character so it can be somewhat hard to follow what the story actually is.

It’s also a little hard to follow because none of the characters have any personality. I really struggled to tell apart a lot of the female characters. They’re exceedingly bland. Some of them also look somewhat similar to each other so that doesn’t help either. And on top of all that, none of the acting is very good either. None of these actresses commanded my attention or even injected their lines with any sort of emotion. They all have a rather flat affectation. The Devil’s Plaything is a lot of bland actresses playing characters I don’t care about enough to even manage to tell apart.

As for the sexy aspects of the movie, I’ve seen better, I’ve seen worse. Some of the naked witchcraft stuff doesn’t come across as erotic because the actresses are too awkward about it. The women weren’t willing to fully commit to the moment and sell whatever weird, witch ritual thing they were asked to do. And that’s what I need from my exploitative nude scenes; commitment to character. Also, there’s three different sex scenes which take place in a barn. Why? There’s a perfectly good castle full of beds right there! More than once during these barn sex scenes it cuts away to show that not only are there horses present during these scenes, but at least one of them is and clearly watching the sexual activity. So, I guess if you think a horse watching people have sex is erotic, The Devil’s Plaything is for you.

I think The Devil’s Plaything warrants a remake. There are good ideas here but the execution lets it down. The acting is bad and the pacing appalling. As a softcore horror flick, it’s neither scary nor particularly sexy. There is a fair amount of lesbian content which is a plus. Though when I say lesbian content I don’t mean two women having a discussion about how they’re part of a marginalized sexuality, I mean two women playing with each other’s breasts while talking about doing witchcraft and murder. While I have a soft-spot for 1970’s horror sleaze, I can’t say The Devil’s Plaything is one of the better offerings. I still had fun with some of the moments but mostly, the movie bored me. I can excuse pretty much all other problems if it was entertaining. However, it was largely not and as such, I cannot recommend it.

Overall rating: 3/10

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