Like so many Hammer films, I saw this at a drive-in when it first appeared in 1976. I actually enjoyed it more than ROSEMARY’S BABY although that is clearly the “better” movie. The story is pretty much a reworking of that film much to the consternation of Dennis Wheatley who wrote the source novel (and one of Hammer’s most celebrated films, THE DEVIL RIDES OUT). What made it work for me was how low key it was making the horror far more disturbing although for most fans today, horror and low key do not go together. It is also graced with two terrific performances from Christopher Lee as the Satanic priest and Denholm Elliot as Nastassja Kinski’s terrified father.
This was Hammer’s last horror feature and their penultimate movie (1979’s THE LADY VANISHES was officially the last). Much of the funding came from Germany hence the inclusion of the 15 year old Kinski. Her brief frontal nude scene caused a stir at the time. Richard Widmark was cast in the hopes of it playing widely in America (a return to how Hammer first started out) but it was dumped in the drive-ins and sank pretty quickly. The release of THE OMEN (which is just a Hammer film with a much bigger Hollywood budget) earlier in the year certainly didn’t help. While DAUGHTER made money overseas (especially in Germany), it wasn’t enough. The Hammer era was over.
Unlike ROSEMARY’S BABY which I found over-the-top hysterical thanks to Mia Farrow’s high pitched performance, the very low key quality I mentioned earlier made the birth of the devil child and the conflagration in the church (to cite two examples) far more memorable than anything in the Polanski film. ROSEMARY looks like a product of its time while DAUGHTER (which I re-watched just recently) seems just the same as when I first saw it. In fact I enjoyed it much more this time around. The biggest problem for most people is the ending which comes across as anti-climactic yet within the context of the story it’s perfectly logical.
The horror film has changed so much since Hammer first came on the scene. While their movies once shocked people, they now appear quaint or even downright boring to a generation raised on the likes of flesh eating zombies and shape shifting vicious vampires. What made the Hammer films so special to my generation was not so much their horror content as it was the personality of their stars and the literate quality of their screenplays. From 1970-76 their movies underwent a number of changes in an attempt to keep up with the competition but once you become a follower instead of a leader then you’re doomed. TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER, while not top drawer, is still worthy of the studio name and makes for a bittersweet swan song.
The Capsule Critic 