A family is traveling through the mid West. There's widower Ben (Charles Bateman), his girlfriend Nicky (Ahna Capri) and Ben's little daughter K.T. (Geri Reischl). Then hit a town named Hillsboro where everyone acts more than a little strangely. Their car breaks down and they're forced to stay. They soon find out a witches coven has a spell over the town and is up to incredible evil.The story is not that good. People just figure things out of nothing and they just happen to find out where the witches are at the end. Also there are a lot of loopholes left dangling at the end. The acting is pretty poor too. Bateman and Capri are bland and everybody else is about the same. Only old pros Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones give good performances. Still this movie does work. It forgoes blood and gore (there's some but this is PG) and manges to work with some very creepy visuals and atmosphere. The acting hampers a lot of it but it still works. Martin especially chews the scenery in his role. I can't explain exactly why I (sort of) like this movie but it did work on me. It's a quiet kind of horror that isn't made anymore. Hardly a masterwork but this deserves to be rediscovered. A 7.

This totally odd-ball feature is a typical and prime example of satanically shocking 70's horror. The events are thoroughly confusing and it takes up quite a while before you figure out what the hell is going on, but the brooding atmosphere sucks you in immediately. Right from the indescribably bizarre intro, showing a couple of eerie children turning toys into real-life war machinery, you just know this become an uncompromising and gritty shocker. "Brotherhood of Satan" soon appears to be another installment in the alleged & unofficial "creepy little town hiding a dark secret" sub genre. A young widower, traveling with his new yummy girlfriend and 8-year-old daughter, stops in a remote little town to report a car accident they witnessed on a nearby highway. The villagers behave very hostile and insist the visitors on leaving right away. The town clearly bathes in an ambiance of fear and panic, as local children vanish inexplicably vanished and unnatural forces maintain everyone within the boundaries of town. Hillsboro is in the grip of a satanic cult, apparently ruled by the elderly members of the community. I really liked "Brotherhood of Satan" a lot. The story reminded me of a novel written by John Saul, but I can't remember the title. It also dealt with a cult of elderly people abusing youthful villagers for their own greedy merits. The film mainly relies on creepy scenery (like dolls and witchcraft relics) but a slightly more involving and coherent screenplay would have been nice. The subject matter often raises a lot of issues and questions, and director Bernard McEveety can't always provide us with answers. The climax is terrific, very seventies (meaning shocking) and unforgettable. Beautifully shot film, too.

One of the best lesser known occult oriented horror movies of the seventies. It's gritty, exciting, scary, surrealistic here and there and at moments even very smart, which can't be said about many of the movies this kind. I can't help seeing some stinging symbolic and metaphoric points at the seventies society and generation stuff of the time this movie was done. The scriptwriter has obviously been cooking while delivering also some good old "from the crypt" kind of scenes. With a job well done from a creative director the result is entertaining and thought provoking. The simple, yet effective ending specially shows how these things are treated right by those who can.The excellent cast were mostly unknown to me, except L. Q. Jones as the moody but funny sheriff and Strother Martin as the town doctor. Martin, not surprisingly, always ends up stealing the movie. With that voice and skill he is one of the greatest loonies in movies, for me anyway. What an actor!So, it is a little bit of mystery to me why this movie has not gathered far greater recognition. I think it would deserve almost equal place in the occult horror canon alongside Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist. One helluva movie!

Not everyone likes this movie. It is still one of the best "you have to be thinking" movies about Satanism ever made. The fact that it doesn't have MTV-era jump cuts or gore every seven minutes is irrelevant. Also, speaking as someone who actually KNOWS Satanists, the (spoiler warning!) portion of the film where the Brotherhood exchange their old bodies for those of pre-adolescent children is authoritatively correct, and it has some genuinely scary scenes. The section where (second spoiler alert) Strother Martin orchestrates the changeover is almost hyper-real in that it uses very few special effects, a hallmark of this film. McEveety was seldom given a big budget but was often effective. It worked in this case, too.In the words of The Man, Satan! HONOR THY COVENANT!