Although I've heard a lot about the films of cult director Ted V. Mikels over the years, I'm not sure I've actually sat down and watched any of his work - until now, at least. Having just endured the cinematic mess that is BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE-DEVILS, I suspect that his career is based on a string of classic exploitation titles that the reality of the movies themselves can't hope to match.Certainly BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE-DEVILS is nothing like it sounds as a movie. Incredibly this film earned an 18 certificate here in the UK, even though there are only two or three mildly violent scenes in the whole thing and the American rating was PG. However it stands, this is a low budget mess of a film, in which very little happens. Mikels seems to be going for a pseudo-documentary approach at times, having a greybeard professor narrating various 'facts' about witchcraft to his assembled audience, which makes for exceptionally boring viewing.The 'horror' comes from a couple of black mass sequences that are full of alternate chanting and screaming, although they're filmed in such a way that's completely devoid of excitement, danger, or horror. Mikels is clearly hoping to emulate some of the exploitational 'witch finder' films made a few years previously, particularly MARK OF THE DEVIL, with a couple of moments of tame witch torture, but the histrionic acting and extremely low production values render such moments laughable rather than horrifying.

I'll give Mikels credit for one thing; when scantily-clad girls dance titillatingly, he knows where to place the camera to, er, "exploit" the situation. Otherwise, films don't get much schlockier or duller than this. Nobody can act, the story makes no sense and the "special effects" are either laughable or (more often) kept offscreen! A truly unwatchable film. Rating: Subzero.

Let's get the basics down first. I grew up in a white-bread, almost totally homogenized town. I am only 19. And, so, I haven't seen too many exploitation films. However, due to a recommendation from "Cult Flicks and Trash Picks," I bought this piece of trash a few years ago. I have watched it twice. The movie is good, and better than most.*SPOILERS* The movie is almost incoherent, and shall be for most films. A group of sacrificing witches do rituals. Their head witch is hired to kill a politician, and then is killed, but reincarnates herself. She also does seances. She decides to extract her vengence on the two who attempted to kill her. We also have flashbacks of torture scenes from history's witches (some of the more disturbing images on screen). And, it ends with a bunch of witch hunters coming to kill her. The movie is funny in parts, sometimes downright hilarious. However, it does have moments of disturbing images, much worse that Last House on the Left, if you need a comparison. The movie somehow got away with a 'PG' rating, probably because it does not show anything. So, I found it kind of entertaining, even if it was a little tedious.7/10

Bad, boring, black magic mumbo-jumbo written and directed by Ted V Mikels("The Girl in the Golden Boots", "The Corpse Grinders")shows no blood, but there is an orgy of tedium. Mara, the "Queen of the Black Witches" kills via black magic - in this case, muttering the lines "so mote it be" over and over ad naeuseum, or pretending to channel an native american spirit who talks in the worst "Injun" dialogue ever ("you no want-em pappoose". The She-devils are her scantily-clad, empty-headed dancers, who perform odious dances not unlike those in Mikels' other miserable dance-choaked films ("The Girl in the Gold Boots")- in fact, Leslie McRea appears in both films, and is equally wooden. What "Blood Orgy" has that other Mikels' debacles doesn't is a lot of screaming - a whole lot! So much of the dialogue is screamed by the actors that the whole herd got a raging headache long before the much-welcomed ending. This is one of the longest 73 minutes you're likely to spend, and certainly one of the moost boring. As one character aptly states: "I don't like what I see here". The MooCow agrees whole-heartedly. :=8P