Co-producer Vincent Cassel gave his handsome star Vincent Cassel (son of the late international star Jean-Pierre) a chance to essay the colorful character role of the repulsive gardener Joseph. Watching him mugging about in a scruffy-haired, ugly-toothed make-up provides most of the fun that is to be had from this peculiar but largely disagreeable diabolical French horror flick; there is little I hate more than the sight of young people waving their arms around in that silly 'hip-hop' fashion and, unfortunately, there is a lot of that going on in the first half of the film
but I must say that watching Cassel's baffled reaction to it was very amusing! Anyhow, three youngsters (each of a distinct race and creed) get in trouble during a Christmas Eve on the town until a beautiful girl (Roxane Mesquida of 2001's FAT GIRL fame) they meet in a disco invites them to spend the night at her farm on the outskirts; there they meet Joseph, his equally unattractive and very pregnant wife, a mentally-challenged relative, the town slut and several of her lusty pretenders. While there is not much gore to be had during the 94-minute running-time, the film-makers decided to substitute that with some disgusting visuals instead: a free-for-all nude swim in the hot waters of a cave; Joseph licking his pregnant's wife tummy; the latter breaking water in the corridor at the climax; an all-important eye-gouging and, worst of all, a completely irrelevant flashback to one of the youngster's one-night stand with (again) an unattractive girl in a tent where her private regions are represented as a table replete with unappetizing food! The events depicted in the film could well be a nightmare being experienced by that same unlucky youngster after being beaten up at the discotheque
or the would-be Satanic rituals revolving around the birth of Cassel's child might really be happening – but, frankly, one never cares enough about any of the characters to spend much time afterwards on sorting it all out. For what it is worth, Cassel's real-life wife Monica Bellucci appears briefly as a female vampire in the black-and-white film-within-a-film being shown on TV at one point!
Review of Satan
