Rating: **
Review Date: 10/14/25
Cast: Tom Selleck, Barra Grant, Tani Guthrie, Paraluman, Vic Diaz
James Robertson (Tom Selleck) is an American museum curator living in Manila. He visits Vic Diaz's art shop looking for fragments of a tapestry and instead ends up with a 16th century painting that resembles his wife being burned at the stake for witchcraft. Not surprisingly, Chris (Barra Grant) finds the painting disturbing and unpleasant, and doesn't share her husband's excitement and fascination with it at all. Before long, she starts hearing voices and seeing visions that make her think she's going crazy. Soon after, a housekeeper shows up out of the blue (Paraluman), who resembles another burning witch in the painting. And a third witch from the painting (Tani Guthrie) appears as a patient at Chris's doctor's office. The doctor thinks that Chris is being possessed by the painting and forced to act against her will, but he conveniently dies in a freak accident before he can prove his theory. Clearly, the women are trying to kill James for reasons that he doesn't understand, and there's no way to escape the curse.
This is an entertaining, but often confusing thriller, and as far as I can tell, it's Tom Selleck's first film role as a leading man. It takes its occult themes very seriously, although Tani Guthrie goes a bit over the top with her psychotic portrayal of a coven dominatrix. She also gets topless in an awkward attempt to seduce James, which then clumsily shifts to a warning that his wife is trying to kill him. The film does a good job of creating a tense and moody atmosphere, and Barra Grant's pained performance dances on the frayed edges of sanity. Apart from the supernatural elements, there are two scenes in particular that make absolutely no sense: one is where James is assaulted by local tribesmen in his own back yard and he simply shrugs it off, and the other is when he visits Vic Diaz's art shop a second time and finds him inexplicably stabbed to death. Neither of these events are explained or followed through in any way. They just happen and are then forgotten, leaving the viewer to ponder why they're in the film and what purpose they serve.
The writing has a strong undercurrent of misogyny and reminded me a lot of the stories in "Vampirella" in the early 70s, with its paranoia and mistrust of women, and the terror and outright fear of the women's lib movement. That said, the attitudes and dialog can be a bit cringey, but it's nothing out of place for the time that it was made. The bizarre ending leaves you questioning what the hell happened just long enough to set up the final twist, which admittedly even took me by surprise. It's a solid low budget thriller with some Satanic hooks to make it feel more exploitive and nasty.