A young (but still mustachioed) Tom Selleck gets top billing in this tacky United Artists thriller that begins as a devil worship tale but instead evolves into a story of ancient witchcraft coming between a present-day wife and her husband, with overtures of reincarnation and torture. An art historian in Manila visits a curiosity shop and comes across a 370-year-old painting of three witches being burned at the stake; he takes it home, hoping his wife will be delighted by the uncanny resemblance between she and one of the witches. Dumbbell opus does have some curious parallels to 1976's "The Omen": a devil dog with 666 on his spiked collar and a mysterious housekeeper who has a forceful hold over the Mrs. Playing a slow-witted sap, Selleck is fairly convincing (not exactly a compliment to the future star), while Richard LaSalle's melodramatic background score seems lifted from any number of made-for-TV movies on the same subject. *1/2 from ****
Review of Daughters of Satan
