Rating summary

Movie		0.5
Video		3.5
Audio		2.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		0.5

Child of Satan Blu-ray Movie Review

Forget Rosemary's Baby, pray for Eric Roberts.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 12, 2017

There are a number of reasonably official looking sites sprinkled around various corners of the internet that insist that titles cannot be copyrighted, something I’ve always thought was the case, though I had to scratch my head a bit when some studio rights holder evidently successfully intervened to keep the late Comedy Central show starring Larry Wilmore from being called Minority Report. One would assume that the same prohibition on copyrighting titles would extend to poster art, something that certainly seems to be the case given the prevalence of very similar posters, especially in genres like horror, that have appeared through the years. That said, it would be hard to find a more blatant rip off of an iconic advertising image than the one Child of Satan proffers, one that is obviously an “homage” (that’s a nice way of saying they stole it). It doesn’t exactly take a rocket scientist to see the similarities between Child of Satan’s marketing art and that of the Roman Polanski classic adaptation of Ira Levin’s Rosemary's Baby, and given the fact that this film’s very title gives away the big secret to the Levin novel and the film which followed from it is another clue that Child of Satan is not exactly a model of innovation or storytelling nuance. This is in fact arguably the single worst film I’ve had to sit through in my long reviewing tenure not just here at Blu-ray.com, but other internet sites and (dating myself pretty seriously here) way back to that thing called print media. Totally weirdly, some online sites have another poster with an alternate title for the film, this one featuring art that seems to suggest the film is going to ply a Walking Dead scenario, something that I certainly missed entirely in viewing the film, though I should probably add a caveat that Child of Satan was so relentlessly bad that I may in fact have gone into some kind of beta state while watching it and cannot completely recall all of the events I was forced to witness.

It’s perhaps instructive to note that in the first case that I personally recall ever having stumbled across like this, the IMDb actually has two listings for this film under its two different names, something that the cynic in me suspects may have been done to avoid what may have been initially negative reactions to it, though to be fair, while Child of Satan’s listing shows an “internet” release as well as a home video offering, the film’s other title shows no releases of any kind (though its production year is listed as 2016, as opposed to Child of Satan's 2017), so this may simply be an IMDb database error. However, in the “a rose by any other name” department, whatever you call Child of Satan, unlike a rose, it stinks.

Speaking of marketing material, what does it say when the film’s official trailer omits the name of the actor playing the lead role? I actually re- watched the trailer to make sure I hadn’t missed it, but indeed I hadn’t, and putative star Yves Bright is nowhere credited. Instead the ostensible marquee value of one Eric Roberts (in the latest sad sign of a career in decline) is given first billing, even though Roberts’ role as a concerned priest is little more than a glorified cameo (and one that comes relatively late in the story, to boot). Bright on the other hand is on screen from virtually the first second, portraying a guy named Kevin, who has a supernatural encounter in Mexico City on the Day of the Dead that ends up cascading into his private life several years later, when his nurse wife Allison (Kacey Clarke) has some complications during her pregnancy.

It’s more or less pointless to try to summarize Child of Satan’s minimalist plot, since little to none of it makes very much sense. Kevin is plopped down into Day of the Dead bacchanalias, and has an interchange with a creepy fortune teller who of course does some kind of devilish spell on Kevin, though why Kevin is chosen is never explained. Even Kevin’s “vision” courtesy of this spell is never contextualized, and is hardly at the artistic level that Polanski offered when Rosemary gobbled down that chocolate mousse with a chalky undertaste. When the film simply lurches forward five years to detail Allison having a medical emergency leading to the birth of her son Neron, there’s already such a trail of inadequate writing and community theater acting acumen that few will care what happens next.

There is such a litany of mistakes this film makes that one would need a Bible sized tome to recount them, but one in particular stands out. In Rosemary’s Baby, the viewer was thrust into the point of view of an innocent woman surrounded by nefarious plotters, with neither the woman nor the audience by extension realizing what exactly was really going on. Child of Satan instead posits a completely unlikable lead character, a philanderer and liar who pretty much deserves whatever evil comes to him. One would think, then, that Allison might become the focus for audience sympathy, but she’s kind of a nagging harridan (of course you would be, too, if your husband was cheating on you and your newborn son really should have been named Damien).

The one good piece of news vis a vis Child of Satan is tangential at best, but may in fact be enough to give hope to a certain jaded segment of the populace. As nerds around the globe are already aware, Mystery Science Theater 3000 has been rebooted with Jonah Ray, and if they’d like a foolproof entry to skewer mercilessly, this film will certainly fit the bill.

Child of Satan Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Child of Satan is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.42:1. Perhaps unsurprisingly, technical data is next to impossible to come by on this film, but the apparent digital capture has resulted in decently sharp and well detailed imagery when close- ups are employed and when some fairly unconvincing "special effects" aren't being utilized. The bulk of the film really isn't graded all that severely, and as such the palette has a relatively naturalistic look about it. There are some notable exceptions, including some cool blue tinged scenes, as well as the almost laughably (well, actually, just downright laughable) hallucination (?) sequence early in the film which features intentionally pushed brightness and a somewhat desaturated palette. Dark scenes occasionally suffer from underwhelming shadow detail. Nothing presented here is going to knock any videophile's socks off, but there similarly aren't any huge issues to complain about, either.

Child of Satan Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This disc offers only a Dolby Digital 2.0 mix, which would be disappointing enough (at least for audiophiles who consider the audio element of a Blu-ray at least, or maybe at least nearly, as important as the video element), but things are further exacerbated by some really odd mixing decisions where it almost sounds like someone was asleep at the slider (as opposed to the wheel), with some noticeable variances in amplitude that seem to have nothing to do with any purported "sound design". There is some relatively appealing low end here, but that certainly would have been improved in a lossless offering.

Child of Satan Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 1:46). This features one of the oddest authoring choices I've ever encountered. There is no timecode on this trailer, meaning the timing shows as "null" or "empty" when played on either standalone players or in your PC drive.

Child of Satan Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Child of Satan may cause some to wonder if some unwitting crew member sold his or her soul to the Devil, and this lamentable enterprise was part of the bargain. Almost deplorably bad in terms of both storytelling and execution, this is one film that seems tailor made for MST3K. Even technical merits aren't optimal and unless you're a glutton for punishment (or have a really jaded sense of humor), this is one to stay far, far away from.