The Brotherhood of Satan (1971)
Aside from one very eerie dream sequence and a good performance from Strother Martin i just can't get excited about this film.
The whole thing felt like a prequel to a parallel universe Children of the Damned with it's bonkers plot of a coven of satanists transferring their souls into children during one final satanic ritual.
Having said that, the film is well photographed especially in the secret hall / room where the ritual takes place, the coven is beautifully realised, but the harsh truth is i simply never found it creepy, scary, gripping or especially interesting.
The Cat O' Nine Tails (1971)
I'm slowly coming round to this film after years of contempt. I was always disappointed that one very stylish early death aside it lacked the usual Dario Argento flamboyance in it's murder set pieces.
Starring Karl Malden as a blind man (There'd be whining and death threats about lack of diversity from the social media virtue signalers if this happened nowadays) who teams up with reporter (James Franciscus) to catch a killer driven by a chromosome imbalance who is killing the staff of a roman research hospital.
This remains one of Argento's weaker efforts from his directing heyday but it still has it's moments, with Malden and Franciscus having a good repartee and the story striking that fine line between mystery and psycho thriller.
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