Satan's Baby Doll (1982) User Reviews

Pervy, but slow and confusing.

[BA_Harrison · 4/10 · 20 August 2010]

Erotic Italian Gothic horror La bimba di Satana, from director Mario Bianchi, takes place in exactly the kind of imposing, brooding castle one would expect from the genre: sat atop a stormy hill, shrouded in shadows, with endless stone corridors and a dusty old crypt, it is inhabited by a collection of 'unique' individuals all hiding dark secrets. Clichéd though these elements might be, the film's narrative could never be described as predictable...

Aldo Sambrelli plays Antonio Aguilar, the recently widowed owner of the creepy castle whose hot teenage daughter Miria (the gorgeous Jacqueline Dupré) has been acting rather strange since her mother's death. Also living in the castle are sexy nun Sol (Mariangela Giordano), who is employed to take care of Antonio's paraplegic brother Ignazio (she gives very thorough bed bath), and a strange manservant named Isidro who conducts satanic rituals in the crypt.

Antonio spends much of his his time shooting up drugs and pestering Sol for sex; but the nun isn't having any of it, preferring to swan around in just her stockings, tempting poor immobile Ignazio. Meanwhile, Miria's fevered state worsens and eventually, she rises from her bed in a trance to kill...

Unfortunately, despite its unusual plot, copious nudity from its attractive female stars, and plenty of general perversion, including lesbianism, voyeurism, murder, possession and necrophilia, La bimba di Satana is a real bore for most of the time: Bianchi's lousy direction is torturously slow and the structure of the film makes matters more than a little confusing—at least until the film's final minutes, when some of the plot threads are thankfully finally pulled together (although I never did quite understand how the reanimated mouldy mummy fitted into proceedings!).

***EDIT*** The above review was for the softcore cut of the film, but having just seen the uncut version, which contains a couple of explicit sex scenes towards the end, my opinion of Satan's Baby Doll hasn't really changed that much: it's still boring.

Nonsensical Euro-smut at its most lurid and ... stylish?!?

[Coventry · 5/10 · 21 January 2008]

I don't quite know what to make of "Satan's Baby Doll", to be honest. As the title suggests, it's another cheap, wicked-minded and umpteenth excuse for Italian producers to come up with sleaze and satanic nonsense – and it is – but on the other hand it's a surprisingly stylish and well-made film. Yes, really! Well, talking in terms of early 80's exploitation standards and in comparison with the other titles on director Mario Bianchi's repertoire, that is. It even has a plot that is slightly above average, competent acting performances (I'm not kidding!) and genuine young beauty that sadly only ever appeared in this one film. Oh Jacqueline Dupré, what an angel you are. The sinister events all take place inside the walls of an ancient family castle atop a hillside. This location is always filmed from underneath in the valley, just to make really sure the viewer knows we're dealing with a very isolated setting here. The lady of the house just died, but she was involved with black magic rites and Satanism, so her malignant spirit attempts to return from the afterlife. She finds the perfect host inside the ravishing body of her young daughter Myra and commands her to kill all the remaining dirt bags in the castle. So what we have here, basically, is an Italian variation on "The Exorcist" (another one), but with a Gothic setting and buckets full of gratuitous nudity. Also living in the castle is a masturbating nun, a Peeping Tom in a wheelchair, a sleazy lawyer, a crazy voodoo-obsessed servant and the sickly jealous and tyrant patriarch. There are quite a lot of senseless dialogs and boring parts you unfortunately have to struggle yourself through, but the death scenes are fairly imaginative and Dupré beauty & sex-appeal brightens up the screen with every appearance she makes. The other female leads are filled in by Mariangela Giordano (yes, THE woman whose nipple gets bitten off by her creep son in "Burial Ground") as the household nun and by adult movie starlet Marina Hedman as the undead but still very horny Maria. This is bizarre early 80's exploitation, to say the least , but it's worth seeing if only for the imaginative choreography, the uncanny set pieces, the ominous musical guidance (courtesy of Nico Catanese) and the naked body of Jacqueline Dupré. Shallow? You bet!

There is plenty of luscious flesh but too much soft core self stroking

[christopher-underwood · 4/10 · 16 March 2011]

I have wanted to see this movie ever since first seeing the wonderful poster artwork, in the eighties, featuring the red winged devil his bloodied and clawed arms around a naked girl. Well, now I have and almost wish it could have remained an unattained desire, still full of great promise. But, no, despite there being many moments of real style, beautiful, naked ladies, a wonderful setting, complete with great cloister areas, not to mention that super poster artwork, this still manages not to work. There is plenty of luscious flesh but too much soft core self stroking and ponderous, nay plodding periods of far too much incomprehensible dialogue. We care little for anybody and with so little regard paid to keeping even the simplest of story lines on track, the only word for this is inept.

Toothless remake of "Malabimba"

[lazarillo · 7 February 2008]

Producer Gabriel Crisanti along with his then wife, the sumptuous Mariangela Giordano, produced and sometimes co-wrote a number of horror/sex movies in late 1970's, always displaying an appalling lack of good taste that was sometimes a good thing ("Malabimba" and "Burial Ground")and sometimes not such a good thing ("Giallo Venezia" and "Patrick Lives Again") depending on the relative talents of the director. (The first pair was directed by a somewhat talented hack, Andrea Bianchi, while the second pair was directed by talentless hack, Mario Landi). This movie is unusual in that Crisanto uses a third director, Mario Bianchi, the brother of Andrea, to basically remake his brother's film "Malabimba", and the result, rather than being repellent and unpleasant like the Landi films, is more just toothless and boring.

A woman is murdered by her drug addict husband, and (while still an attractive nude corpse lying on the slab) she manages to possess her nubile young daughter and uses her to get revenge on her husband, her husband's bent doctor (who was also her lover), her husband's crippled brother (who was ALSO a former lover), and the local priest because. . .well, he's a Catholic priest. She doesn't really NEED to possess her daughter though since she also seems to have incredible psychic abilities that among other things allow her to reanimate the dead.

Of course, the name of the game of all these movies is sex, and here this movie is a mixed bag. If you favor mature, voluptuous "madonnas" like Giordano you will not be disappointed with her portrayal of a compulsively naked and self-gratifying nun (the mother is also pretty damn attractive given the considerable handicap of lying dead on a slab for most of the movie). On the other hand, if you prefer the nubile, barely legal "lolitas" the unknown Jacqueline Dupree is a very poor substitute for Catyl Laennac in "Malabimba" in that she fails to masturbate with a teddy bear or fellate her own uncle to death or even get naked below the waist. What will be disappointing to either camp though is that the inter-generational lesbian sex scenes of "Malabimba" that pass for "the exorcism" have been replaced here instead by a strange scene of necrophilia (albeit one that makes necrophilia look pretty attractive). It might have been pointless to remake "Malabimba" to begin with, but this is compounded by the the filmmakers not faithfully imitating the first film nearly enough.

There is also, by the way, a hardcore version of this film out there, but while some may disagree, nowhere in the history of cinema that I know of has hardcore footage ever IMPROVED a movie. Not really recommended. Stick with "Malabimba".

Stylishly Nonsensical Blend of Gothic Horror and Pornography

[Witchfinder-General-666 · 5/10 · 6 September 2010]

Mario Bianchi's "La Bimba Di Satana" (aka. "Orgasmo Di Satana"/"A Girl For Satan") of 1982 appears to be a remake of Andrea Bianchi's "Malambimba" of 1979, which I haven't yet seen. "La Bimba Di Satana" is a peculiar mix of stylish but nonsensical occult Gothic Horror, psychedelic music and pornography. When I started watching the uncut long version named "Orgasmo Di Satana" I expected it to be the typical slice of Italian Sleaze-Horror containing lesbianism, gratuitous nudity and perversions. However, I was nonetheless surprised to see the film suddenly include scenes of hardcore pornography after 45 minutes into the film (though the same is the case in several other European Exploitation productions from the early 80s).

The plot line is thin, and about as nonsensical as it gets. In an eerie Gothic castle, the death of Maria Aguilar (Marina Hedman) is lamented by her despotic husband, the castle owner Antonio Aguilar (Aldo Sambrell), their innocent daughter Miria (Jacqueline Dupré), and Salo (Mariangela Giordano), a gorgeous nun with exhibitionist and lesbian tendencies who is taking care of Antonio's crippled brother. After her death, however, Maria reappears within the castle walls; she seems to have possessed her daughter, and is apparently trying to drive the other inhabitants of the castle into death...

The plot makes little sense, and in-between the sleaze there are several hardly endurable nonsensical scenes in which nothing happens. However, the film is very stylishly filmed, the photography is gorgeous and the score is great (though a bit repetitive). The stylish death scenes are also worth a look, and in some parts, the film even gets pretty creepy. I have been a fan of Aldo Sambrell since I first saw him in Spaghetti Westerns years ago, and he is once again good in the role of the over-jealous and malicious tyrant patriarch here (though the script does not allow him to give his best). The ravishing Mariangela Giordano is known for her roles in the nastiest of Italian Exploitation films, including Adrea Bianchi's "Le Notti Del Terrore" (1981), in which she had her nipple bitten off, and Mario Landi's "Giallo a Venezia" (1979), in which she had her leg sawed off. Miss Giordano, who plays an exhibitionist lesbian nun here, is probably the most convincing reason to see this film. The beautiful young Jacqueline Dupré is also nice to look at as the possessed daughter. There are tons of gratuitous but very welcome female nudity, lesbian scenes and softcore erotica that Eurosleaze fans should appreciate. However, I would probably recommend to watch the 70-minute version which doesn't contain the (rather un-erotic) hardcore scenes. If you are searching for pornography, the internet is probably a better source than obscure 80s films like this one. The surprise effect of a movie suddenly turning into porn promises a certain amount of fun, though.

Overall, "La Bimba Di Satana" is a mixed bag. It is definitely worth a look for my fellow fans of sleazy Italian Exploitation cinema. Others should probably avoid it, as they might think of it as the worst movie ever made. It certainly is a rare film that combines style and nonsense in such an extreme manner, however.

Boring, risible stuff

[tomgillespie2002 · 2/10 · 7 August 2011]

The freshly-dead body of Maria (Marina Hedman) lies in the crypt of the Aguilars. The castle's inhabitants stand round her body, glancing nervously and suspiciously at each other. Her daughter Miria (Jacqueline Dupre), starts to struggle with her mother's death, and begins to walk in her sleep, feeling her mother's presence inside of her. Maria's husband Antonio (Aldo Sambrell) is a wealthy tyrant who rules the castles with an iron fist, and when he sees his paraplegic brother Ignazio spying at the naughty nun Sol (Mariangela Giordano) getting up to some sordid antics in her room, he flies off the handle in a jealous rage. Meanwhile, Isidro, fears Satan's power and the control he will have over Maria. When the castle's resident doctor is killed after he tries to take Miria away, it is clear that Satan's power is indeed present, but who is he controlling?

The film finishes around the 1 hour 13 mark. The fact that I felt as if I'd just watched The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy back-to-back in one 10- hour session speaks volumes about the quality of this Italian supernatural erotic horror. It is basically a half-an-hour film stretched out as far as possible into something that resembles a feature. Apart from the expected bad acting, woeful script, and laughable silliness of it all, which you would almost expect, the film is suicidally boring. As Ignazio stares at the naughty Sol through her bedroom door and she pleasures herself in all her overacting glory, the camera cuts from naked flesh, back to his wide-eyes, back to naked flesh and then back to his eyes, and so on. This lasts for eight whole minutes. It's like Sergio Leone decided to make a low-budget horror with a sprinkling of soft-core porn, and somehow lost all his talent beforehand. Fans of over-the-top soft-core porn will rejoice, but for everyone else, this is pretty risible stuff.

www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

SATAN'S BABY DOLL (Mario Bianchi, 1982) **

[Bunuel1976 · 4/10 · 21 November 2007]

Some sources (including the afore-mentioned "Stracult") consider this to be a superior film to MALABIMBA – THE MALICIOUS WHORE (1979), of which this is a revamp (and therefore sufficiently different not to qualify as a direct remake) but I certainly disagree. To begin with, there is only a fair amount of nudity but little sex in itself and none of the hardcore variety; in fact, it's rather heavier on horror content compared to the original, even going so far as to include a completely irrelevant (if reasonably eerie) marauding mummy scene!

On the whole, SATAN'S BABY DOLL is a much more somber film and, consequently, a good deal less entertaining than MALABIMBA itself (which, at least, had rampant nudity and campiness to compensate for its other deficiencies). Conversely, the later film is a more compact affair with not only less characters (7 in all) but a much shorter running time at only 74 minutes. Another good score is provided and I thought Mariangela Giordano (who, at 45, certainly looks great in the nude) was better here than she was in MALABIMBA. The lead, Jacqueline Dupre', is quite lovely as well (though I personally preferred Laennec) and, like her predecessor, this was her only movie to date.

Unfortunately, the cons greatly outnumber the pros in this case: the baffling butler characterization (and the resulting hideously hammy performance) is a definite eyesore, as is the sloppy editing (especially during the scene where the paraplegic uncle imagines Giordano writhing passionately in bed). Spaghetti Western regular Aldo Sambrell is curious casting for the unsympathetic vengeful head of the family and his sluttish wife (whose spirit possesses the teenage lead) is not all that attractive either (which did not prevent her from getting it on with the novice while still alive)!

When everything is said and done, I don't think SATAN'S BABY DOLL merited a DVD release of its own and would have been better served as a double-feature with MALABIMBA...not least because such a move would have decreased their collective purchase price and saved shelf space to prospective buyers! Curiously enough, there's no option to watch either film without English subtitles and I had to manually remove them during playback!

"That's impossible!"

[The_Void · 5/10 · 16 August 2008]

Mario Bianchi's A Girl for Satan is apparently a remake of Andrea Bianchi's Malabimba, and although I can't compare the two having not yet seen Malabimba; this remake is stylish and sexy enough to at least be considered half decent. I've read that Malabimba is a rather more hardcore affair; and it would seem that the director here tried to cut that out, and while this film does feature a fair amount of nudity; there's no hardcore sex scenes, but this does actually benefit the film as it certainly seems a lot more erotic than it would have been were it padded out with a load of sex scenes. The plot is mostly nonsensical but has something to do with demonic possession and some horny naked woman coming back from the dead. Our lead character is a young girl who gets possessed by the spirit of her dead mother; who was murdered by her husband. The mother uses the girl in order to get revenge on a whole range of people that had something to do with it; including the family doctor and her husband's crippled brother.

As is always the case with cheap Italian trash, the script here leaves a lot to be desired and there's far too many scenes in which the characters say 'that's impossible!'. In fact, it happens just about every five minutes or so and naturally it's not long at all before it starts to get very tiresome. The film's main assets belong to Jacqueline Dupré, who is simply stunning and doesn't seem to mind getting her kit off at every given opportunity; and that's no bad thing. The film does look fairly cheap; but some of the set design is nice to look and the lighting is also marginally impressive - which does help the atmosphere of the film. It does get a bit hard to follow at times because the plot line takes so many illogical steps; but the style and the leading lady do at least serve in keeping things mostly interesting. At just seventy minutes, the film is rather short so it doesn't really have to become too boring. Of course, it all turns out to be a big waste of time in the end as the film never goes anywhere and doesn't really do anything; but even so, there's worse trash out there and this does at least have some redeeming elements.

A Wasted Opportunity

[Falconeer · 5/10 · 31 July 2012]

"Satan's Baby Doll" is a true cinematic oddity, as it is such an extreme mix of good, and awful. The creators of this film had everything that they needed to make a true classic; access to a lavish castle on a cliff, decorated for royalty, a memorable music score, and a beautiful young actress in the central role. There is even a fairly interesting story here, of an angry mother who possesses the body of her daughter from beyond the grave, to exact revenge on the inhabitants of the castle. Seriously, the sets need to be seen to be appreciated. Italian director Luchino Visconti would have filmed one of his masterpieces in this opulent setting! Unfortunately the people behind the scenes were lacking in some regards. Beautiful images sit awkwardly next to very ugly scenes, of ugly old men biting the heads off of chickens and writhing around on the floor making guttural, vomiting sounds for long stretches of time. Unappealing scenes of actors past their prime, getting naked and having very graphic sex. To make matters worse, the director decided to film actual hardcore scenes for this film. This is the version I saw, and I can attest to the fact that they add nothing to this film. Said scenes include a woman in her late 40's/early 50's giving on-screen oral sex to a rather unattractive man in a wheelchair, and another scene of the same tired old whore performing oral sex on a completely disgusting old man, and there is a short insert of his penis entering her old-lady vagina. The young girl Jaqueline Dupre is of course involved with none of these tasteless scenes, (luckily for her!) Anyway, this awkward mix of artistic art-house beauty and ugly pornography don't really work. and it's a shame because much of the film really is gorgeous to look at, atmospheric and sad. In more capable hands, "Satan's Baby Doll" could have been a true cult classic. what we have instead is a result of a film maker who could not seem to make up his mind, whether he wanted to create art, or garbage. Strangely the end result is artistic garbage. i don't think i have ever seen any film as uneven as this; did it have two directors?

Sleazy Italian possession flick.

[TheAgonyOfPlasma · 7/10 · 3 December 2007]

"La Bimba di Satana" by Mario Bianchi is actually a remake of Andrea Bianchi's supremely sleazy "Malabimba". It was shot as a hard core sex feature from the outset. There is plenty of explicit sex, perversity and full-frontal nudity in this lovely piece of Italian smut. The role of the innocent nun who is thrown into nightmare of possession plays again Mariangela Giordano, famous from "Burial Ground" and "Giallo a Venezia". There is also a little bit of zombie action, unfortunately the complete pornographic version of this piece of sleaze is probably lost forever. Still if you enjoyed "Malabimba" you can't go wrong with "La Bimba di Satana". The story of possessed Miria is just so wonderfully murky and sleazy that it truly has to be seen to be believed. She is apparently possessed by her dead mother, or her ghost, using the image of her daughter and is soon erotically enticing everyone in the castle and killing them off one by one.

What a waste of time

[mglory67 · 5/10 · 11 April 2001]

I got this print from Video Search of Miami, not really knowing for sure what I was in for. I was under the impression that this was a possession movie, and it is, sort of. Unfortunately, all of the characters are so boring that after a while you stop caring who's doing what to whom. The basic plotline is this: young girl becomes possessed by the spirit of her dead mother while left in the care of her tyrannical father. There are a number of other people living in the house, but it isn't really explained what they're doing there. In fact, there isn't much in the way of a plot either. There a few really sleazy moments which I won't give away for you exploitation fans. Ultimately, this one is for diehard fans of the genre only.

just pray no one puts 'Satan's Baby Doll' in the corner!

[Weirdling_Wolf · 9/10 · 20 February 2022]

As a good catholic boy I was once taught to only expose my young misfit mind to theologically edifying works of god-fearing fright! Angelically 80s, wrong-headed, Video-era relic 'Satan's Baby Doll' remains one truly essential, unholy spirited, sweaty Psalmed, ghastly genuflected grindhouse classic of immaculately intoxicating Italianate insanity! A celebratory cathedral of sublime celluloid sin, Bianchi's supernaturally sordid, fleshly fabulous, soft-horn horror-show is blessed with an abundance of sanctifying, smut-slathered shuntage, ominously occult orgies of voyeuristic villainy, and diabolically delivered death! You can certainly bash more than your bible to muck maestro Mario Bianchi's super-sleazy, quick-wristed, catacomb creepy, morbidly necromantic, satanically twisted shocker 'Satan's Baby Doll', starring scintillatingly sexy Euro-cult legends Mariangela Giordano, Jaqueline Dupré, and swarthy spaghetti western icon, Aldo Sambrell.

This blissfully bizarre B-movie bacchanal will sensationally sleaze your mind, stiffen more than your resolve, put some righteous funk into the most miserable monk, titillate the holiest of holies, and bring y'all closer to the god-head! So don't be a martyr to midnight movie mediocrity! Kneel before the triumphantly trashy altar of monotheistic madness that is 'Orgasmo Di Satana' aka 'Satan's baby Doll'. And much respect to the celestially sonorous score by beat-master Nico Cantanese that delivers some devilishly sweet grooves to your B-Horror-loving dome. Infamous splatter film-maker Mario Bianchi is no mere frivolous frock teaser, since he put the 'X' back into the exorcist, and righteously put the spear of god back into horror, as his frequently celebrated, starkly sinister scuzz-fest 'Satan's Baby Doll' gives you wings!

Hassle in the Castle, Italian Style

[Steve_Nyland · 6/10 · 12 April 2007]

It has taken me a while to understand this Italian supernatural soap opera from Mario Bianchi, but thanks to a new English subtitled DVD from Kult Films of Germany it all make sense. While it may come off to non-Italian speaking viewers as a somewhat plodding, action deprived Gothic something-or-other, this is a pretty little perverse study in moods & style that deserves a second look by fans of Italian horror.

The plot is deceptively simple: A wealthy dirtbag with a taste for smack throttles his philandering wife in a fit of rage after discovering her illicit lesbian affair with the sexy, shapely nun employed to care for the man's invalid brother. During her funeral she possesses the body of her sexy teenage daughter and over the course of the film compels the girl to bring about the deaths of everyone in the household that the woman had slept with. Which was all of them, at one point or another, including a sinister looking butler who was apparently dabbling in the black arts down in his private little satanic shrine in the catacombs near the family crypt and somehow enabled the woman's allegiance to Lucifer.

Or, something like that. Legends abound that this was originally a full-blown hardcore sex film though the only surviving prints amount to a roughly 72 minute (PAL 25fps: all known versions are PAL transfers) celebration of moods and deviancy that is deceptively tame looking. Lesbianism, necrophilia, voyeurism, incest, drug abuse, and cold-blooded murder from beyond the grave prevail as director Bianchi sets a deliberate, meditative pace that wallows in the film's ornate, Gothic trappings, all of it set to a decidedly melancholy and evocative keyboard/vocal musical score by Nico Catanese that gives it all an air of sadness that is distinctively at odds with the rather high sleaze quotient.

The cement that holds it all together is another standout method performance by Spaghetti Western veteran Aldo Sanbrell as the heroin-shooting, domineering, loyalty obsessed aristocrat who is a living portrait of rage barely controlled. One of Sanbrell's gifts as a genre actor has been to embody the sort of contained violence that is always threatening to spill over and literally murder someone ... Rumors of his tenuous grip on sanity in the real world only heighten the pleasure of watching him with veins popping at his temples & sweat beading on his brow as he shakes with rage. He simply looks like a man who is capable of anything no matter how despicable, and the film's most harrowing segment turns out to be the sequence of ingeniously staged shots of him wheeling his invalid brother into the family crypt to be abandoned to sit there and rot, unable to move or even call out for help. What a guy.

Between weird, bizarrely staged killings there is sex galore, typical of the Italian "male gaze" oriented fantasies typified by interludes of female masturbation that are actually rather erotic for a change without being necessarily graphic. This is one of those Italian horror movies where women walk around completely naked or more modestly clothed in designer lingerie made to display the female body. Even the nun wears thigh high sheer white stockings with platform shoes more fitting for a go-go dancer than a sister of the cloth. And the bulk of the story is either set in the dank, crumbling catacombs or a marvelously ornate castle that for once is spotlessly clean, well lit, and gleaming with wealth & opulence. No cluttered cobwebby Dracula hovel this time.

The one drawback that Americanized viewers may find in the film is it's deliberate and meditative pacing, which to me makes it even more soap opera like, with the widescreen camera angles filled with the trappings of an Italian film producer's idea of the good life. All the while the haunting, melancholy musical score wails on in the background making this a more advanced form of a ghost story than even something like SUSPIRIA. I wish it was even more sad and contemplative, but to each his own.

6/10: Underrated and due for rediscovery, though for my money there probably was no hardcore version. People just wished their was.

A pretty low grade sex-horror film

[Red-Barracuda · 3/10 · 4 March 2012]

Well they do say you should never judge a book by its cover. The same rule clearly applies to movies. Satan's Baby Doll sports a very provocative poster whose design is somewhat similar to the work of fantasy artist Boris Vallejo. It would only be fair to say that nothing in the film itself resembles this painting at all. The misleading poster is the best thing about this.

This flick is one of many European movies that combined horror with sex. If anything this is a sex film with horror elements, rather than the other way around. It isn't an especially erotic movie though, so it fails in its primary objective. In fact it's a bit of a bore mostly. It does have a nice setting but that's about all it has going for it. It's a badly directed affair with a simple yet confused story about possession. It's very difficult to care very much what happens. It's essentially a tedious sleaze-fest and that is never a good combination.

Satan's Baby Doll

[Michael_Elliott · 28 February 2008]

Satan's Baby Doll (1982)

** (out of 4)

Remake of Malabimba, The Malicious Whore follows the same storyline pretty much and also cuts out the hardcore sex scenes. This time out it's Jacqueline Dupre playing the young girl who is being possessed and Mariangela Giordano reprises her role as the nun. This is a pretty straight forward remake so if you've seen the original movie then you're not going to have any twists or turns that you don't see coming. It's hard to say which movie is better as both have good and bad things going for them. I think this one works nicely without the hardcore scenes but at the same time this film here isn't nearly as sexy or erotic as the original. This film is also pretty straight forward and doesn't contain as many campy moments, which is the main reason I'd rewatch the original over this one. This one here does have some great cinematography and some nice eye candy in the form of the beautiful naked women but I wouldn't really call this film necessary.

The worst Italian movie ever

[dasa108 · 1/10 · 2 July 2011]

This movie was made with the script of Malabimba, but with more and real made for the movie stars sex scenes. Beside that, nothing happens. The history is difficult to follow, because is so simple that you want more. But when you want more, only bad sex scenes, and the lack of shock moments made a terrible mix. The only good thing of this movie is the pack. Is a shame, because not everyone can buy a movie for the pack. Is like when you meet a nice lady, but in her heart you find more than one nightmare. I gave yesterday a chance to this movie. I thought to invite a friend. He was lucky. He miss the chance to waste almost 1:30 hours of a valuable life. I lost part of my life. Snif.

An entertaining wallow in sleaze.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 10 October 2021]

Young Miria (Jaqueline Dupre) is part of the Aguilar family who live in a remote castle. Mirias' dearly departed mother Maria (Marina Hedman) is now a restless spirit who possesses her daughters' body in the name of revenge. She then proceeds to play on the weaknesses of the other characters - and the fact that EVERYBODY wanted Maria when she was alive - to lead them to their doom.

"Satan's Baby Doll" is a pretty straightforward remake of an earlier Italian sleaze-horror flick, the notorious "Malabimba". It follows the same basic story while leaving out hardcore sex scenes. (It even has the lovely Italian actress Mariangela Giordano ("Burial Ground") reprising her role as the nun.) That's not to say that this reasonably amusing feature is without sexy bits, far from it. There's abundant nudity from both female *and* male cast members.

There's also a great, gloomy mood & atmosphere present in this film, and a score (by Nico Catanese) that is haunting if repetitive. Director Mario Bianchi and company achieve a pretty good mix of both erotic and horror elements, as various characters come to their nasty ends. (Viewers who dislike animal cruelty, however, will be turned off by the fate of one unfortunate chicken.) The performances are all adequate to the occasion; Spaghetti Western veteran Aldo Sambrell presides over the family as Antonio, a powerful but despicable man who's used to getting his way. Young Dupre is memorable in the main role (actually, her one and only movie role). Giordano is enticing as the nun, and Giuseppe Carbone is a hoot as the crazed Isidro, who tries to exorcise Miria.

"Satan's Baby Doll" may not be AS erotic or campy as its predecessor, but it shows fans of this kind of thing a pretty good time, wrapping up in a trim 74 minutes.

Seven out of 10.

Satan's Baby Doll

[Scarecrow-88 · 6/10 · 2 August 2009]

The vengeful spirit of a murdered woman(..strangled by her loathsome cretin impotent husband, Antonio Aguilar, played by Aldo Sambrell), Maria(Marina Hedman, naked pretty much the entire film)wreaks havoc on all the inhabitants of an isolated castle on a hill, using the body of her daughter, Miria(Jacqueline Dupré)in order to do so. Those affected include Antonio's paraplegic brother, Ignazio, the family's medical doctor, Juan, their truly deranged "priest" Iridio, and nun Solo(Mariangela Giordano). All, except perhaps the bug-eyed priest, had sexual relations with Maria resulting in Antonio's rage, fueling his desire, after her death, to get revenge on each person involved with the woman.

Plenty of wicked deviant behavior and warped shenanigans in Mario Bianchi's answer to his brother's superior Malabimba, the Malicious Whore. Jacqueline Dupré is little more than a blank puppet whose eyes are soulless and lost, but she has a magnificent, gorgeously tanned naked body, seen mostly throughout the film moving around the castle in a gown confronting those in the castle as her mother seeks lives. Aldo Sambrell is a really despicable sleazoid creep, often attempting to ravage Giordana's Sol...Antonio is also an addict, using his brother's pain medication, injecting it in his arm. There's plenty of bizarre hi-jinx including the red-suited priest's tearing into the neck of a rooster, blood drenched teeth, bug-eyed lunacy, chanting over the mummified corpse of an Aguilar ancestor attempting to woo Maria's spirit from Miria's body, and generally wailing away on the concrete floor inside the bowels of the castle. The mummy is really an inspired moment in the film, a blast from the past finding it's way into this very strange possession thriller. Where Satan was supposed to be is never quite elaborated..that or how Maria was able to enter her daughter's body(..was she a practicing witch?). Mariangela Giordano essentially reprises a similar character to the nun protector in Malabimba, except her role as Sol is a little more naughty. Giordano has quite an effective striptease as she removes her habit, those long white stockings, letting her hair fall, with Antonio's brother peeping in on her, through the crack of the door, fantasizing about her masturbating and fondling herself. Mario Bianchi's camera work is quite good as is the atmospheric castle itself an effective setting. Short running time of 75 minutes with little padding, with the story moving along rather quickly. While the film doesn't quite match Malabimba in overall erotic power or twisted audacity, Satan's Baby Doll certainly still contains it's share of gratuitous elements. Like so many other films, Satan's Baby Doll just can not live up to it's alluring, macabre poster cover art.

"You dirty paraplegic!"

[Bezenby · 6/10 · 10 October 2013]

In a clash of contrasts, this beautiful looking film has a beautiful looking actress in it, but still comes across as just a cheap exploitation film. Mariangela Giodrani (of Burial Ground fame) stars here as nun Sol, caught up with a truly horrible family living in a mansion in isolation. Matriach Maria has just died, and the family have gathered together to see her off. You've got Maria's husband Aldo Sambrell (Flesh for the Beast), his crippled brother (another actor from Burial Ground), Aldo's daughter Miria, the butler, and a doctor. Very shortly the film dives head first into murder, nudity, possession, nudity and nudity.

Soon enough, while Aldo's shooting up his brother's morphine, his brother is peeping in on Sol while she's sleeping, imagining her doing a bit of invisible banjo playing. This scene goes on forever (although I'm still deciding if that's a good or bad thing here). The butler is trying to do some ritual to clear the house of the curse (another scene that goes on forever) while Miria wanders around the crypt as her dead mother's voice commands her to kill people. Aldo starts going crazy and accusing everyone of having an affair with his dead wife (which might be true, as it turns out).

This film might be sleazy (although there's very little sex), but the horror elements are sadly lacking. There's a few kills and the only scene that was any good was when Aldo was taking his brother to the basement to kill him. I suppose the bit where the corpse got up and strangle the guy was alright too. However, there is wall to wall nudity if that's your thing, as every female cast member (and some of the males) get their kit off, and I'm not complaining about Mariangela Giodrani – those big hazel eyes do seem to carry a certain charm.

All said, I could have done with a bit more story and horror, but you might get your kicks out of this one. It was okay.

Utterly Bizarre, but Amusing and it Contains the World's First Gif

[By-TorX-1 · 6/10 · 15 August 2019]

La bimba di Satana/Satan's Babydoll is a strange early 80s film that does not really ever make much sense, but is marvellously weird and pleasantly gothic, albeit with a string of extended sex scenes which may or may not try the patience of viewers. Some of the highlights are Isidro's very, very long spellcasting (and yelling/gurning) scenes, and when Ignazio spies on the sleeping Sol (and imagines all kinds of self-induced hijinks on her part). The latter is notable in that it is essentially the same scene repeated countless times, and so it is (especially with regard to the repeated close-ups of Ignazio's startled boat race) pretty much the very first media gif! However, it is fair to say that these scenes can equally also try the patience of saints due to their endlessness. However, the film has possessions, a spooky castle, a pretty cool mummy and so is a horror curio, if nothing else.

Sleazy and atmospheric remake of "Malabimba".

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 7/10 · 6 January 2011]

The plot of "La Bimba di Satana" is fairly simple:following the death of her mother a young girl named Miria gets possessed by her spirit and tries to avenge her mother's murder.The thin plot is only an excuse to pack as much sleaze as possible.There is plenty of full-frontal nudity provided by Mariangela Giordano of "Giallo a Venezia" and "Malabimba" fame,Italian porn queen Marina Hedman and Jacqueline Dupre.The film is set in a lovely Italian Gothic castle.The score by Nico Cantanese is extremely cheesy.Unfortunately the Shameless DVD did not include two hardcore scenes that were available on the German release.Overall,"Satan's Baby Doll" has its share of creepy atmosphere,but it's not as insanely sleazy as "Malabimba".7 crypts out of 10.

Guilty Pleasure

[thewag777 · 6/10 · 16 February 2008]

Here we have a sensual, creepy, and sleazy indie horror. Much of it is very erotic, borders on soft core porn, but the horror of the film is too good to pass this off as a hornography. It has it's gore, but it relies heavily on scene setting and subtlety rather than just another boobs and blood. With that said, the various nude scenes and especially the lesbian stuff towards the end clearly degenerate this film, but then, who can deny enjoying that! The baby doll herself, Miria, is beautiful and young, and plays the role well. Just wait till you see her in bed being possessed...get the cold shower ready! Definitely worth seeing! Not a masterpiece by far, but good fun! I rate it 6 of 10.

Pure sleaze

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 15 December 2023]

Director Mario Bianchi made some interesting movies. Kill the Poker Player AKA Creeping Death combines the Italian West with giallo. He was the director of the "Lucio Fulci Presents" films Sodoma's Ghost and The Murder Secret. Nightmare in Venice, which adapts Arthur Schnitzler's Traumnovelle before Eyes Wide Shut. He wrote Tragic Ceremony. And he finished his career doing adult under the names Nicholas Moore, David Bird, Tony Yanker and Martin White, making movies like Sexy Killer, a remake of La Femme Nikita and The Castle of Lucretia.

Producer Gabriele Crisanti and screenwriter Piero Regnoli wanted to remake Malabimba The Malicious W**** and even brought back Mariangela Giordano, who had stopped working with Cristiani and dating him after that movie, saying that she felt "used, abused and exploited." That should tell you how far the movie went, as she had worked with the producer on movies like Giallo In Venice and Patrick Still Lives, two of the most reprehensible late 70s Italian exploitation films, not to mention her stunning scene in Burial Ground where she allows her zombie son to feed on her bare breast.

Where the original film was very sleazy, it did not go all the way into hardcore. This one goes all the way and had softcore (La Bimba di Satana) and hardcore (Orgasmo di Satana) versions.

In a remote Spanish castle, the Aguilar family is mourning the passing of Countess Maria (Marina Hedmann, who appeared in Emanuelle in America and Images in a Convent as well as adult films) whose body lies in state. The family doctor (Giancarlo Del Duca) claims that her death was from a heart attack, yet everyone thinks her husband Antonio (Aldo Sanbrell) murdered her.

Everyone has been seduced by Maria, from the doctor to Antonio's wheelchair-bound brother Ignazio (Alfonso Gaita) to the nun, Sol (Giordan) who cares for the ill uncle. The family butler Isidro (Joe Danvers) brings her spirit back into Maria's teenage daughter Mira (Jaqueline Dupré) and helps her get revenge.

Sanbrell had issues working with adult stars. In Roberto Curti's Italian Gothic Horror Films 1980-1989, he has a quote that says, "We had to shoot a love scene, Marina and I... Well, I was lying on the bed, waiting for her, and when she showed up we started making out; after a while I realized that she was doing it for real and I had to stop her." Sambrell contacted Crisanti to say that he could not work under these conditions and he was replaced in the lovemaking scenes by Gaita, who also worked in pornography.

Not to be outdone with just being outright filth, the poster also rips off Boris Vellejo's "The Vampire's Kiss."

Eurosleaze, more sex than horror

[Stevieboy666 · 6/10 · 15 August 2022]

"When the Devil calls, she comes", so says the cover of my UK DVD release. It has a picture of Satan embracing a naked woman but reality is there is no devil in this movie, no baby either, just a glimpse of a toy doll. The thin plot is set in a lived-in castle, I liked this Gothic aspect and being Italian the movie both looks and sounds good. However the main focus of this rather short movie is to show lots of naked flesh and some soft core sex scenes. All three actresses shed their clothes, lots full frontal nudity plus a few scenes of nipple touching and masturbation. The nudity isn't just confined to the women, there are a few brief shots of male genitalia too. Some of these scenes were sourced from a German print of poor picture quality. As for the horror a lot of time is spent in the crypt of the fine looking castle, we get a talking sexy nude corpse, a cool mummy and a few deaths, though little blood is seen. My favourite line, "You dirty paraplegic!" More sex than horror but if you are a fan of Eurosleaze then Doll is worth a watch.