There are few things more lifeless than a made-for-TV horror film that lacks the budget to shock, the nerve to disturb, and the sense to entertain. The Devil’s Daughter, a 1973 ABC Movie of the Week, stumbles onto your screen like a blind goat in a satanic petting zoo, promising brimstone and blasphemy, and instead delivering Shelley Winters in a doily, whispering about ancient pacts like she’s lost her glasses and can’t find the script.
This is horror in a beige cardigan. This is Rosemary’s Baby if Rosemary had been sedated with chamomile and legally required to wrap up her evil destiny by the end of a commercial break.
The Plot: Satan’s PTA Moms Strike Again
The story begins with Diane Shaw (Belinda Montgomery), a sweet, forgettable young woman attending her mother’s funeral. As per satanic tradition, she is promptly approached by a creepy older woman—Lilith Malone (Shelley Winters, in peak post-Poseidon Adventure paycheck mode)—who informs Diane that her mom used to roll with a Satanic cult, and guess what, so should she! Apparently, Diane is some sort of hell-born princess, destined to marry into darkness like a goth debutante.
But Diane isn’t feeling the whole Dark Bride aesthetic. Instead, she falls for a suspiciously charming man named Steve Stone (Robert Foxworth), a name so generically 1970s it could have been generated by shaking a pair of sideburns in a bingo cage. She thinks she’s escaping the cult’s grip—until the big twist arrives with all the grace of a drunk goat on roller skates: Steve is also a demon prince! Surprise! Your wedding cake is filled with goat’s blood and everyone at the reception is humming backward Latin incantations.
The end.
Direction and Pacing: The Devil’s Downtime
Jeannot Szwarc, who would go on to direct the Supergirl movie and episodes of Columbo, takes the helm here with all the energy of a producer who just realized he left the coffee pot on. The film is flat, both visually and emotionally. Most scenes are shot with the sterile stillness of an instructional film about toaster safety. This isn’t creeping dread—this is creeping drowsiness.
You can almost feel the ABC censors hovering over every frame with a ruler, smacking away anything too juicy or frightening. The most terrifying thing in this film might be the floral wallpaper in Diane’s apartment.
Performances: Satan, Save the Queen
Shelley Winters, bless her, gnaws through the scenery with the ferocity of a woman who knows the paycheck cleared. Her Lilith Malone is part cult leader, part PTA chair, and part walking plot device. She tries to summon menace but mostly ends up looking like someone angrily returning soup at a restaurant.
Belinda Montgomery, as Diane, gives a performance best described as “emotionally stranded.” She seems deeply confused, which would be effective if the film were playing with unreliable reality—but instead, she’s just dazed, like she’s trying to remember if she fed the cat.
Robert Foxworth as Steve is eerily smooth, like a used car salesman who also reads ancient Sumerian texts aloud for fun. The moment he reveals his true hellish nature is delivered with all the terror of someone telling you they’re lactose intolerant.
The rest of the cast? Honestly, they fade into the wallpaper like haunted throw pillows.
Themes and Tone: Satanism for Daytime TV
The Devil’s Daughter tries to ride the coattails of Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen, offering up themes of predestination, occult legacy, and the seduction of evil. Unfortunately, the tone lands somewhere between After School Special and a rejected Scooby-Doo episode. You can practically hear the producers whispering, “Make it spooky, but not too spooky. Grandma’s watching.”
Instead of moral ambiguity or chilling tension, we’re given cryptic conversations about cult membership that sound like Rotary Club recruitment pitches. Every creepy moment is sanded down to a dull edge, every twist telegraphed from miles away. Even the climactic “wedding twist” lands like a soufflé in a wind tunnel.
Legacy: Evil, Lightly Toasted
For screenwriter Colin Higgins (who would later write Harold and Maude and Foul Play), The Devil’s Daughter is a curious blip on the resume—a trial run, perhaps, to prove he could write dialogue while being held hostage by network executives demanding he keep it PG and vaguely Satanic.
There’s potential here—truly. The idea of an unwitting heir to a demonic throne is fertile ground, but The Devil’s Daughter plays it like a game of satanic hopscotch, never daring to leap into the flames. What we’re left with is a limp, bloodless fable where even Hell itself seems bored.
Final Verdict:
The Devil’s Daughter is evil with all the spice of warm milk. A made-for-TV occult yawner where Satan’s minions wear sensible shoes, the cult rituals happen offscreen, and the climax feels like it was interrupted by a station identification bumper. If you’re looking for terror, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for Shelley Winters in Satanic drag muttering ominous nothings—well, then it might be worth a spin.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 goat-headed grooms
More ABC than Astaroth. Pass the pitchfork.
