"Father Michael" (Christopher Lee) is an excommunicated priest who has established a devil worship cult under the guise of a Christian church. His goal is to provide the devil with a daughter who will be his representative on Earth. A young nun named Catherine (Nastassja Kinski) is to become this "daughter" (more specifically the avatar of Astaroth) as of her 18th birthday.
But as her birthday approaches, her biological father has second thoughts about selling his daughters soul, and he seeks the help of a occult novelist in an effort to save her.
To the Devil a Daughter has probably two main claims to fame. For one thing, it is the second to last film to have been released by Hammer prior to its 2008 revival. Christopher Lee, a Hammer Film stalwart, again plays a starring role in this film. His line "It is not heresy... and I will not recant!" was sampled by White Zombie in the song "Super-Charger Heaven" from their well known Astro Creep 2000 album.
Like many other late Hammer films, it clearly made an effort to keep up with the increasingly graphic horror films of the day. In this case this meant more in the way of gratuitous nudity and sexual content rather than violence. This generated some controversy at the time although nothing particularly explicit is actually shown.
The film was actually an adaptation of the 1953 Dennis Wheatley novel by the same name. It was the second such adaptation by Hammer, the first being The Devil Rides Out, which was released in 1968.
To the Devil a Daughter is well acted and well casted, and as with other Hammer films it does well in terms of sets, locations, and (in this case quite weird) imagery given what they were working with. While campy and, sadly, one of Hammer's last dying breaths in the 1970's, this is ultimately an enjoyable if somewhat melodramatic film.
3 devil cults out of 5
Contains nudity, sexual content, violence.
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