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Reviewed by:
Ian Jane on December 1, 2007.

A 1973 made for TV movie obviously inspired by the box office success of Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, Jeannot Szwarc’s The Devil’s Daughter is a fairly derivative film but succeeds in spite of that thanks to some interesting casting and a few surprisingly dark moments. 

Alice Shaw (Diane Ladd) made a deal with the devil – she promised to offer him her newborn daughter once she turned twenty-one. Now that Alice’s little girl is all grown up, the devil has come to claim what’s his – Diane Shaw (Belinda J. Montgomery). When Alice is shot in her apartment, Diane meets Lilith Malone (Shelly Winters) at the funeral. It turns out that Lilith was a long time friend of the late Alice and so the two start talking and eventually young Diane accepts Lilith’s offer and moves into her home. 

Initially Diane finds her new accommodations to her liking but is soon distraught when she finds evidence of cult related activity, some of which implicates her own mother. When Diane decides it would be best if she moved out, Lilith throws a temper tantrum. Once Diane moves in with a roommate and becomes involved with the hunky guy who lives next door named Steve Stone (Robert Foxworth), Lilith’s behavior becomes increasingly deranged as does that of her cohorts (one of whom is Abe Vigoda!). Diane tries to distance herself but as wedding plans with Steve start to bloom, Lilith and her fellow cult members start to close in on Diane to ensure that the devil does indeed get his due. 

While The Devil’s Daughter is pretty much a blatant rip off of Polanski’s film, director Jeannot Szwarc (of Supergirl and Jaws II) at least paces the film well and ensures that there’s a reasonably palpable atmosphere of dread during the last half of the picture. The camera work is good and there are some set pieces in here that are darker than you might expect from a seventies made for TV film, notably the opening and of course the completely predictable finale.  

That said, while the film looks good and has a few fun twists, the real reason to watch the picture is for the oddball cast. Not only does Shelly Winters figure prominently into the story but so do bit part characters played by Abe Vigoda, Joseph Cotton, Diane Ladd and even Jonathon Frid. None of the performances are particularly memorable but it is fun to see some of these people show up in a film such as this.

The presentation leaves no small amount of room for improvement but The Devil’s Daughter is an enjoyable made for TV oddity that proves to be an entertaining, if predictable, thriller.

Belinda Montomgery, Shelley Winters, Robert Foxworth, Jonathan Frid, Martha Scott, Joseph Cotten, Barbara Sammeth, Diane Ladd, Abe Vigoda