MARÍA KOSTY GUESTING THE POSSESSED 'DEMON WITCH CHILD'

Title: Demon Witch Child/The Possessed/ La endemoniada Year: 1975 Rating: ***1/2

Two years after the groundbreaking horror THE EXORCIST, Spanish director Amando de Ossorio used the William Friedkin classic as more of a jumping off point than remake, providing the central pre-teen girl not only a reason for possession, but an actual character whose ghost creeps inside her...

Which would sort of become the future plot of Stephen King's THINNER, involving a grotesque old gypsy woman's death providing an ongoing curse... here through sexy gypsy daughter Kali Hansa, leading a sacrifice that includes a dead abducted baby's blood adding to targeted Marián Salgado's soul-binding transition...

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD

With strangely exotic, high-cheekbones contrasting to the usual long blonde hair and girl-next-door freckles, this already intriguing child starlet doesn't necessarily need makeup to be spooky... but a nightmarish mask is provided nonetheless, of the old gypsy's face under balding/stringy hair, providing its own terrifying imagery for an otherwise deliberate ripoff...

As this DEMON WITCH CHILD spends more time outdoors than the body-floating bedroom, even under the bright city-street sunlight... more a perverted serial killer than smack-talking demon-riddled victim, at one point castrating a male reporter... as the BLIND DEAD franchise auteur replaces his signature overboard low-budget exploitation elements in place of suspenseful/high-octane terror...

Julián Mateos and María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

That works and it doesn't... the latter while straying from the more original gypsy-curse premise to double-back to its bad seed muse, including the familiar young handsome dark-haired priest randomly dealing with (before inevitably exercising) the screaming/cursing child... although he's given a backstory involving scream queen María Kosty's initial crush turned obsession: in a melodramatic sequence more like a police procedural...

Which also includes burly Spanish icon Fernando Sancho as a tough police chief; Spanish genre cameos from Montserrat Prous (a nurse) and Julia Saly (a maid); an expository-spouting shrink; the girl's politician father... and most importantly Lone Fleming as the surrogate Ellen Burstyn, whose battle with the titular demon child is even more bloody and personal... as Armando de Ossorio's exterior EXORCIST field trip's really a surreal strewn-together collage of uncomfortably formidable/unfortunately memorable b-movie moments.

Lone Fleming in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD with Kali Hansa

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Kali Hansa in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Kali Hansa in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Kali Hansa in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Julia Saly in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD with Julia Saly

Kali Hansa in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Kali Hansa in DEMON WITCH CHILD with Fernando Hilbeck

Julián Mateos and María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Julián Mateos and María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Montserrat Prous in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD with Lone Fleming

María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

María Kosty in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Julián Mateos in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Marián Salgado in DEMON WITCH CHILD

Julián Mateos in DEMON WITCH CHILD with Fernando Hilbeck and Fernando Sancho

From DEMON WITCH CHILD