- Directed by Piers Haggard
- Written by Robert Wynne-Simmons, Piers Haggard
- Stars Patrick Wymark, Linda, Hayden, Barry Andrews
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RMySPyhMUY
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was originally planned to be an anthology of three tales, interconnected by them all having the Earthly remains of Satan dug up. Instead, all three were force mashed together into one story that’s pretty entertaining overall but not great. Watchable certainly, but a little dated and slow.
Synopsis
Ralph Gower plows his field when a neighbor waves to him. He finds a weird skull and bones in his field. Credits roll. Ralph goes to the judge and insists the skull was some kind of fiend, not a human, but not an animal either. They go to investigate further, but it’s not there when they return. Reverend Fallowfield is there playing with snakes, but he didn’t see anything either.
Rosalind comes to stay with her fiance, Peter, and his hateful aunt. The aunt makes her sleep in the attic tonight. In the middle of the night, Rosalind starts screaming, and the old aunt goes in and beats her up. The judge orders that Rosalind’s door be nailed shut until the men from the madhouse come to take her away. Aunt Banham gets scratched in the scuffle and it gets infected. The doctor decides to bleed her a little to help the recovery. When they take Rosaline away the next morning, Peter notices she has long claws.
Elsewhere, Angel finds something else in the plowed fields. It’s a claw! The claw and other trinkets soon wind up in the possession of Reverend Fallowfield. Aunt Banham disappears during the night, and no one has any idea where she’s gone off to. That night, Peter goes up into the attic, and something with a large claw tries to pull him down through the floorboards. He covers the hole with a large chest and then goes to sleep in the same room. During his sleep, he’s attacked by the creature, and he stabs it repeatedly– no, that was his own hand!
The doctor suggests it’s witchcraft, but the judge says that’s all nonsense. Squire Middleton calls off the search for Aunt Banham. The judge heads back to London. Cathy and Mark had been playing with bones from the field, and now Mark starts feeling ill. He and all his friends skip Bible study with Fallowfield, which he doesn’t appreciate. Someone strangles Mark while the other kids all watch. Later they find him buried in the woodshed.
Angel comes to Revenered Fallowfield and tries to seduce him, but he doesn’t fall for it. “Mark has the devil in him, so we cut it out,” she says. Angel tells her father and the squire that the Reverend forcibly raped her. The squire has the reverend arrested for rape and for Mark’s murder.
Out in the field, two local boys find Cathy and they take her to Angel and the others out in the woods. The whole group does a ritual that summons a monster. Then, several of them actually do rape her while the others watch. Finally, Angel stabs her in the back with garden shears.
Ralph finds Cathy’s body and tells the squire what happened; they release the reverend. Peter goes to London to tell the judge what’s been going on in town. The judge has been studying the doctor’s book on demonology, and he’s much more well-informed than he was the first time around.
The villagers hunt down a stranger and accuse her of being a witch. Ralph arrives just as they throw her into the river to see if she floats. She doesn’t, but Ralph pulls her out, and she survives. They notice that the woman has a furry patch, the same as Mark and Cathy had. Ralph calls it “The Devil’s Skin.” They talk the doctor into trying to cut the patch of skin off. They don’t have any painkillers, but he does a fair job of removing it; there’s no blood.
The woman wakes up; she’s Margaret, and she does work for Satan. She’s not happy about the skin being removed, but she tries to corrupt Ralph. She soon runs away. The judge arrives, and they get him up to speed on the disturbances. The judge takes the skin patch and gets the dogs to hunt down Margaret. Angel, who now has evil eyebrows runs into Margaret, who was caught in a bear trap; she lets the dogs get Margaret. The judge interrogates Margaret, and she tells the judge where the big ritual is going to be held tonight. Satan himself will be attending.
Out in the field, Ralph now finds that he has suspiciously hairy legs– it’s more of Satan’s skin. He sees the judge and a group of villagers heading to where Angel’s going to be doing the summoning. Ralph wakes up in the middle of the ritual as Angel and the other villages dance around a fire and do ritualistic things. A naked dancer gives Ralph a knife, but before he can do anything, the judge stabs Angel. The judge grabs Satan and throws him into the fire. That seemed really easy.
Commentary
Most of the characters wear atrocious wigs throughout. The judge is, of course, supposed to be wearing a stylized wig which was the fashion of the time, but the others’ hair is supposed to be real. It makes some of the actors look like they’re doing some kind of rushed comedy skit at times. The soundtrack is good, but repetitive enough to get stuck in your head insidiously.
This is usually lumped in with “Witchfinder General(https://www.horrorguys.com/witchfinder-general-1968-review/)” and “The Wicker Man(https://www.horrorguys.com/the-wicker-man-1973/)” as the main body of the folk-horror trend of the early 70s. It’s got a really good basic plot, and the acting is all right, but it definitely feels a little dated and slow today.
In the end, the judge just picks up Satan and burns him in the fire. Satan puts up no fight at all and doesn’t even say anything. He’s pretty lame there. Overall, it’s pretty entertaining, but a lot of it doesn’t really make much sense.