Product: Satan's Wife (1977)
Rating: 1.0
Typical abysmal picture quality from Mya and a tedious movie to boot.
For those curious as to whether Satan's Wife exhibits Mya's customary substandard quality, I'm sad to report that it does. The image looks like it was pulled from an old bargain VHS tape recorded in the EP mode. As with many of Mya's releases, there are no extras at all (not even a trailer), and you get two audio options: Italian with no subtitles and dubbed English that is very poorly voiced. The best thing you can say about the picture quality is that the aspect ratio seems to be correct--frequently not the case with Mya DVDs.The picture and sound quality are both bad, and the movie itself is not much better. I watched the English version, and I got the impression that that the lines were designed to fit the movement of the mouths rather than reflect what was written in the Italian script. The basic plot involves four women who had a one-night stand with Satan long ago, renounced their allegiance and now must pay the penalty, a penalty that comes in the form of one of the women's daughter, now a teenager and looking to avenge the insult to the Evil One. Admittedly, the actor playing the daughter is pretty creepy (and her bad dubbing actually makes her creepier), but her lines are so overblown and the situations she finds herself in are so convoluted, you can't take them seriously. In fact, the death of one character late in the movie is so illogical, you get the feeling that the actors were simply making it all up as they went along. The film also features a number of "special effects" (such as people disappearing and reappearing for no real reason) that will make you miss the high standards of 1960s TV shows like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie.Now take a look at the box cover and the tagline "The devil has never been hornier." You may think you're going to get a lot of nudity. You don't.The plot itself is negligible, as it is in many of these Italian Exorcist/Omen rip-offs, but many of the scenes (especially those which involve the Charlemagne swords) play like Saturday Night Live parodies of these kinds of movies. It's nice to see John Phillip Law paired again with his Danger: Diabolik co-star Marisa Mell, but the opportunity to put the two together is wasted.We begin with a long dance sequence in which the women give themselves to the devils, but they all sport big smiles, as if they're showgirls auditioning in Vegas. We end with the very 1970s "shock" ending, which isn't so much of a shock as a relief that the movie is over. Basically this is a waste of your money and a waste of your time.