Watch Sinthia: The Devil's Doll For Free

Too much of everything

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Sinthia: The Devil's Doll (1970) * 1/2 (out of 4) Ray Dennis Steckler's in the director's chair for this weird mix of incest, Satan and of course sex. In the film a young girl named Cynthia sees her mommy and daddy having sex. Cynthia has a thing for daddy so she brutally murders both parents. Flash-forward several years and she's involved with a Satanic cult. If you read any review for this film I'm sure the word "confusing" is going to be found. Yes, this movie doesn't make a bit of sense but I think some have been way too hard on it. Many have called this one of the worst movies ever made and many even went as far as to say it's the worst thing Something Weird Video ever released. None that statement is far from the truth because I thought there were some entertaining moments to be found here. Yes, on a technical level the film is quite the mess because it doesn't make a bit of sense and it really does seem as if the director doesn't know what he wants to do with the story. It bounces around with no rhyme or reason and it's nearly impossible to ever know where the thing is going to go next. Some might say this adds a surreal nature to the picture but I think if this is true then it was done on accident. Fans of Al Adamson's drive-in pictures from this era will be happy to see Gary Kent on hand here. Shula Roan plays the title character and while it's far from a good performance she at least keeps you slightly entertained. The film is full of all sorts of strange colors but the psychedelic approach doesn't always work. I will at least say there's plenty of nudity and strange sex scenes to help keep it moving. THe biggest problem is that there's just not enough story here to carry the 78-minute running time, which really starts to drag badly around the 50-minute mark.

Another 'masterpiece' by the infamous Ray Dennis Steckler, who also was the man behind the incredibly crappy but highly amusing film with the greatest title ever, "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?" (1964), "Sinthia, the Devil's Doll" (1970) is an abysmally bad and virtually plot-less Trash gem that is highly recommendable to fans of 'so-bad-it's-good', but should be avoided by anyone else. The eponymous Sinthia (kudos for the clever wordplay) is a girl with certain... err... issues, who is so madly in love with her daddy that she kills both of her parents when she catches them having intercourse. Years later, Sinthia, who has blossomed into a beautiful young woman, is still tormented by guilt (the poor thing). Her psychiatrist gives her a somewhat unusual advice to make her guilt go away... Or something; the plot really is way too confused to even call it that. There are three reasons to watch "Sinthia", one being the film's extreme weirdness, another the absolute lack of logic or coherence, which, in such a uniquely outrageous extent makes it worth watching. The most convincing reason to watch "Sinthia" is the lovely Shula Roan in the eponymous role. Roan, who never appeared in any other film, is sexy and very cute, and while she certainly isn't the best actress ever, I still wish we could admire her 'talents' in a few other films. The film furthermore includes several (unintentionally?) hilarious sequences, and breasts are shown every other minute. In spite of that, it is overall very boring, and only recommendable to my fellow Trash-fans who are willing to endure periods of pure boredom for some bits of enjoyable weirdness.

I have to take some exception with some of the other reviews. I don't think this is really any worse than any of Ray Dennis Steckler's other movies. True, it has far less of a plot, but given how stupid the plots of some of Steckler's other films are, that's not necessarily a liability. It also doesn't work very well as an erotic sex film, but that's not necessarily a liability either. Sex films are generally worthless and boring and usually little more than masturbation fodder. Even the ones from the 60's that are somewhat "erotic" can hardly hope to compete with the ones today, which are much more graphic and have better looking women (at least, if silicone breasts and anorexic-looking bodies really turn you on). But it's the weird, disturbing ones like this that are a lot more fun or interesting today--if not always necessarily for the reasons originally intended.This film is about a disturbed young girl who at twelve murdered her parents while they were having sex due to incestuous longings for her father. She burned down the house afterwards, but was rescued by the neighbors and was committed to an asylum where six years later she recounts the incident to her psychologist. Of course, it's also possible she was killed in the fire and consigned to hell. But whether she's crazy, or in fact actually in hell, the imagery is pretty much the same—psychedelic scenes of infernal orgies with lots of droning voice-over narration. It does get a little repetitive and sleep-inducing, but that's true of pretty much all sex films isn't it? Making the protagonist twelve years old at the beginning is definitely in pretty bad taste, but given that the voluptuous actress playing "Sinthia" isn't believable even as the eighteen-year-old she plays in the "present day" scenes, I'd just let that one go.This movie is currently available on a Something Weird DVD along with the Anton LaVey/Church of Satan "documentary" "Satanis", and I have to say I much prefer the psychedelic-styled fake satanic orgies of this film to the documentary-style "real" satanic orgies of LaVey and his followers in the co-feature (not to mention, having to put up with LaVey himself, an egotistical charlatan who spent thirty years laughing all the way to the bank with his "satanic" nonsense). This is not a great film by a long shot, but relative to Steckler's other films, to sex flicks in general, and to its co-feature "Satanis", it's not THAT bad.

Dont get me wrong I love Stecklers films , "Rat Fink a Boo Boo" , "Thrill Killers" , "Wild Guitar" , "Super Cool" all have a pervading feel of fun and to be corny the "joy" of just making a film. But sadly "Sinthia" is one of his lapses into the adult movie genre. He has made sine full length hardcore films which have to be the most un-erotic scenes committed to film. It seems that "Sinthia" was his practice run for the lamentable pap that was to follow a dozen years later. The girl in question is having strange dreams and see's a lot of hackeyed hallucination sequences and people trying to look scarey with little more that painted faces and paper plates with hair. To be honest the plot didnt grab me at all and the film wanders between soft core orgy scenes (with hideous people) and running around on the beach. Its 100 % worse than his later films "The las vegas serial killer" and "The Chooper" (Blood Shack) and made me feel disappointed that from the same mind that gave me some of the original film I have ever seen came this run of the mill sort core trash. For archive value to fans of Steckler its a must , I was told for years before I saw it how bad it was and how that even I would hate it, but thats never put me off before but for once I have to say that im sorry I didnt listen to advice , but then again im glad I have seen it.