Atração Satânica (1989) Online

Brazil can boast a peerless reputation for producing some of the greatest soccer idols that mankind has ever known. Pele, Ronaldo, Bebeto, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo and the magnificent Romario are just some of the footballing legends that have worn the fluorescent yellow shirt of their five-time world cup winning country. But aside from a few headline-creating carnivals, Brazilians have seemed content to rely only on the quick footed skills of such players to bring notoriety to their South American country. That's why I wasn't really sure what to expect when I learned that they had created their own addition to the slasher cycle. Aside from the five-star City of God, the Brazilian film industry has been virtually non-existent to UK audiences, and I must admit that this would be only the second of their productions that I had ever seen. But France and Italy - two other great footballing nations – can boast slasher output that is nearly as good as their World Cup winning squads, which made the initial signs look promising for Satanic Attraction.

It kicks off in traditional satanic fashion in the midst of a crowded ritual. A masked figure makes his way through a pack of African dancers and heads down some underground stairs to host a bizarre black mass in front of a crowd of hooded revellers. The strange cult leader picks up a huge dagger and heads over to a pair of blonde beaming twin children. The mysterious stranger then slices the wrists of the youngsters and pushes their arms together, presumably to link the pair with a bond of blood. The crowd look on in anticipation as the twins grin sadistically.

Some time later we meet Fernanda, a radio announcer who hosts a controversial show on which she tells creepy stories to a captivated nationwide audience. Some listeners believe that her ramblings are dangerous and could result in violent consequences, while others are just happy to see so many people turning to radio for their source of entertainment. Her latest tale concerns a dark figure roaming the town and murdering young women with various gruesome weapons. The killer then uses the victim's blood to reanimate his deceased sister in her beachside grave. After dismembered bodies begin turning up around the local town, Fernanda realises that her stories are somehow connected to identical murderous events that are taking place at exactly the same time as she speaks on air. What connection does she share with the ritualistic psycho and what links the killings to the hapless DJ?

Satanic Attraction looks to have been produced on a fairly decent budget and it's immediately apparent that director Fauzi Mansur didn't scrape the barrel for the effects that he visioned would make his movie a hit. A few of the murders are extremely gory: meat cleaver through the head, dismemberment, gooey throat lashing's and a spear pushed through a love making couple a la Friday the 13th II. The killer is seen mainly from behind and dresses in traditional Giallo-like black psycho-garb. Although part of the plot concerns searching for the maniac's identity, the whodunit aspect is mostly left simmering on the backburner. Even tough things stick closely to the typical Giallo/slasher rulebook, Mansur manages to mix in a share of supernatural elements that are both interesting and utterly confusing in equal measures.

As this is a Brazilian production, the original vocal soundtrack is in Portuguese and the producers didn't opt for subtitles to export the feature to English speaking nations. Instead the movie has been dubbed by a gang of wooden planks, sorry, students from America and the United Kingdom. Obviously it's impossible to tell what these guys were studying, but one thing's for certain, they definitely weren't drama students. This has to rank along with Samurai Reincarnation as the worst dubbing in cinema history. But that's not Satanic Attraction's only problem. The movie is nearly two hours long and a huge majority of this time is spent listening to the aforementioned 'actors' warble their way through a poorly translated script, with characters popping up all over the place without any rhyme or reason. The net result is an overlong dreary feature that takes an hour and a half to finally shift into gear as the killer goes on an excellent maniacal spree. When we reach the film's conclusion, it just gets silly as one twist that was easy to predict gives way to yet another.

Unfortunately, Satanic Attraction is a major let down in every respect. It's hardly worth tracking down for the excessive gore and all that's left is a long corridor of confusion and horrendous acting. Someone should tell these guys to stick to producing great footballers instead of slasher movies…

Satanic Attraction was a hard-to-find video. This is not at all my kind of movie--a slasher flick from late eighties Brazil-- but my friend Sarah provides the voice for one of the characters in the English language version!

The movie takes itself fairly seriously, though the acting is pretty bad. Nothing but cliche characters, of course no character development. But with a group of non-professionals (several of them students from the US visiting Brazil) providing the voices for the dubbed version, the final result is pretty hilarious. I enjoyed it in kind of a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" way. Actually, I'd nominate the movie for their lampooning. It would be an honor!

The story is hard to follow and seems pointless toward the end. The end is anticlimactic as well-- "What just happened?" Because of the poor acting and sound quality, it is hard to separate the story they want to tell from all the running around and screaming.

No, better yet: this film could use someone like Woody Allen to provide an entirely new dialog and storyline like he did in "What's up Tiger Lily?"

What a trash, amateur and ridiculous flick: it is worse than `Troll 2'. In my life, I believe I have watched about fifteen thousand movies. But this one is certainly among the ten worst I ever seen. I believe this thing was shot by bad students of cinema. And it is dubbed in English. No plot, no direction, no actors, it sucks! I used the very useful fast forward button many times. My vote is null, zero (one in IMDB).

The acting is pretty bad and made worse by dubbing but in the slasher genre this should hardly matter.

There is almost always someone about the be killed in a bizarre way and supernatural overtones. The basic story is a radio hostess who is making up some multi part horror story for her radio show and the things she describes are really happening.

There is something about twins and a cult--this is not a spoiler as even after watching the movie it's kind of hard to tell someone or know yourself exactly what was going on. But this is not all unintentional there is some kind of a myth behind the events and a certain myth logic to what happens. Sort of. In many myths there isn't a clear reason or ultimate sense to them as they are beyond mankind's ability to understand them. If any of this makes sense to you then the movie will make enough sense to hold you interest and be worth watching.

It's good to know that going in as the just 20 minutes or so seem completely plot less otherwise. There is a lot of gore some better done than others but the film is rarely dull, and there are some odd supernatural elements and masks that give it flavor. More ambitious then successful? Maybe. I admit any slasher type film with supernatural elements are ones I prefer so I have a soft spot for this movie. It is more giallo and supernatural than slasher if that means anything to you. Another saving grace this film has is even though some of the killing scenes aren't very well done they are always odd and sometimes unintentionally funny.

Hard to find this movie and good quality versions probably even harder to find, but for something different in the genre give it a look. Oh the title seems to have almost nothing to do with the movie.