Tockinit not horrible nor great

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

soulexpress In the Spanish countryside, sisters Marta and Veronica run a small hotel. They also murder any guest who doesn't live up to their strict, fundamentalist moral code. Because God. Didn't he also say something about not killing? Well, whatever.The film is available in different versions, running between 67 and 120 minutes. I have the 67-minute version, and boy does it feel cut! Scenes just stop, characters react to nothing, there's no blood and gore to speak of…. And what's left is rather dull and not at all original: the murdered guests end up on the hotel's menu, their remains are stashed in wine vats in the cellar, and one of the obnoxiously religious sisters is sexually involved with the hotel's handsome young caretaker. Certain characters' motives and actions are never explained either, though that may be due to the chainsaw- like editing job.Though marketed as a horror film, it's neither scary nor suspenseful. There's nothing to keep us guessing, as we know from the start exactly who is killing those young women. The acting is passable but, as often happens with these low-budget productions, the dubbing stinks.Unlike the most watchable Eurotrash, this film is nowhere near sleazy or exploitative enough to hold a viewer's interest. I'm glad I only subjected myself to 67 minutes of it.

Tom DeFelice Every movie is made up of a series of edits to what the filmmaker originally shot. This can turn a good film to bad and vice versa. The most famous is the very different versions that exist of Orson Welles' "Touch Of Evil". "Night And The City" and "Mad Wednseday"/"The Sin Of Harld Diddlebock" exist in two different version of the same source material. That is also true with "It Happened At Nightmare Inn" and "A Candle For the Devil". It is sad that IMDb does not see the difference in these very, very different cuts of the same source material. But the versions are all different from their counterparts."It Happened At Nightmare Inn" is not very good. The more sexually charged "A Candle For The Devil" is far more interesting. In 1973, "Candle" probably could not be shown in the U.S. The theme of sexual repression caused by religious fervor is very different from a couple of crazy ladies who like to kill young women.Pass on "It Happened At Nightmare Inn". "A Candle For The Devil" is worth a look.

Leofwine_draca I was inspired to watch A CANDLE FOR THE DEVIL simply because I'm a big fan of Eugenio Martin's other Spanish terror flick, HORROR EXPRESS, so I wanted to see what he'd achieved here. I have to say I was disappointed, because I realised halfway through that this is a mood flick and I'm no big fan of mood flicks. By that I mean, it's all about (admittedly creepy) atmosphere, without a whole lot else going on. There are four or so murders but they're all spread out so thinly that I was half asleep waiting for the next one. The film itself concerns the doings of a couple of crazy sisters, whose religious repression is hinted at but never fully explored in the same way as in a movie like ALICE, SWEET ALICE.It's a shame, because these are two very interesting characters. The actors playing them, Aurora Bautista and Esperanza Roy, are both accomplished and fine in the parts, giving subtle turns despite the film's frequent descent to melodrama. Most of this film just sort of goes by out of your notice... there's a bit of talking, a sex scene, more talking, some wandering around in Spanish streets, more characters come and go... and then the movie ends exactly halfway through the climax, leaving you scratching your head and wondering how it ended (although I can appreciate that the freeze frame is effective in itself).I did want to like this film. Martin has a good sense of visual style, and some shots reminded me of Mario Bava's superior, nightmarish LISA AND THE DEVIL. The set-pieces are well-handled and the murders quite chilling, without being overly graphic. There's a strong focus on exploitation values, as Martin strives to cram in as much nudity as he possibly can, and much of it is outrageous: there are nude pre-pubescent boys, nude corpses, a nude middle-aged woman... no normal cheesecake that I can remember. Judy Geeson is quite ineffectual as the film's supposed heroine, because she doesn't seem to be in it much, and when she is on screen she's not doing anything. In the end, I have to say that A CANDLE FOR THE DEVIL is a very average film, not much we haven't seen before in this PSYCHO derivative sub-genre, and I'm mainly disappointed because it could have been so much more.

Boba_Fett1138 You can say that this movie is bit of a lackluster but it nevertheless remains a very well made movie.It's hard to classify this movie as anything. It's not really a slasher, since there are simply not enough killings for that and for an horror/thriller it simply isn't exciting enough. But that doesn't make this movie necessarily bad really. It's just a bit of a different movie that takes its own course with its story and I must say that the movie is pretty well done.Seems like Spanish film-makers back in the '70's try to create a same sort of horror sub-genre that was so popular in Italy, around the same time. There are a bunch of Spanish genre movies like this one but none of them really ever was successful or a truly great one. They were lacking too much in originality and gore, among other things. The movie is not really anything special to watch. Although the movie got well done and creates a good atmosphere and also has a pretty good main premise, it remains a pretty tame and lackluster movie. It's still watchable all but it's easily a movie you can do without.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/