FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Spikeopath Daughter of Darkness is directed by Lance Comfort and adapted to screenplay by Max Catto from his own play titled They Walk Alone. It stars Anne Crawford, Maxwell Reed, Siobhan McKenna, George Thorpe, Barry Morse, Liam Redmond, Cyril Smith and Honor Blackman. Music is by Clifton Parker and cinematography by Stanley Pavey.Emmie Beaudine (McKenna) isn't liked by the women folk of the Irish village community where she lives. There's something about her that riles them, frightens them even. So when the women of the village round up on her keeper, the priest, she is sent off to live on a farm in a North Yorkshire county of England. Which is timely as she has had an altercation with one of the men from a travelling fair. Once at the "Tallent" family farm, Emmie settles in well and seems genuinely happy, but still some of the women folk in the vicinity view her with suspicion, and when a face from Emmie's past shows up, it's the catalyst for doom and desperation.It's an odd chiller of a movie, something of an acquired taste, it's hard to pigeonhole. Never overtly horror, noir or otherwise, it's not hard to see why some specialist genre fans have found it a disappointment. Yet if you can buy into Comfort and Catto's ethereal world there's a picture of great rewards here, a complex character study mingling with asides on sexual empowerment, even a story with supernatural leanings, the edges of which are deliberately shaded in grey. And of course there's the crime factor bulging at the seams, Emmie Beaudine a cold murderess, her rhyme and reason for being so repulsed by male sexual contact is again deliberately left floating in an emotionally distorted purgatory.Nicely photographed in black and white, the visual atmosphere is very tight to the murky themes swirling around the plot. There's also a number of memorable scenes, the hurly burly of the carnival sequences, the hauntingly troubling playing of an organ, and some super scenes featuring Thorn the Alsatian dog, a real life war hero (look him up, amazing animal) who is also very much a key character here. Strong acting performances around McKenna are a bonus (including the beautiful Blackman in her first credited role), but it is the Northern Irish actress who spellbindingly holds court, with much of her visual acting stunning in its execution.Love it or hate it, you wont be able to ignore it. 9/10

MartinHafer "Daughter of Darkness" begins with some very cool opening credits. The font and backgrounds are quite striking and work well with the rest of the film. As for the rest of the movie, it's an odd little story about a strange woman who rubs other women the wrong way. While I thought this aspect of the story was overdone, the overall film is worth your time.The story begins with a bunch of sexless old biddies approaching the local priest. They think that his housekeeper, Emily, is evil. Why exactly they think that is a bit vague--but apparently they hate her because men are inexplicably attracted to her (she's not THAT pretty by the way). Regardless, the priest is a wimpy guy who just wants things to be quiet, so he sends her to work for some far off folks. However, once in the new locale, once again the local women inexplicably grow to hate her. The problem is, you learn later that they have darned good reason--though they have no idea how bad she really is! This is a good film but I think some of it was overdone. The way women almost automatically hate Emily seems ridiculous and making all this more subtle would have worked much better. Still, it is an enjoyable little film and worth seeing despite a few limitations.

writers_reign If you know the name Lance Comfort today you're either 80 plus with a total recall of British 'B' pictures you saw more than half a century ago or else a film student specializing in British 'programmers' from the 40s and early 50s. Daughter Of Darkness dates from 1948 and introduced Siobhan McKenna to British film-goers, not that anyone seemed to care. In one sense acting joke Maxwell Reed enjoyed a higher profile but then he did marry Joan Collins before she decided that one non-actor was enough in any family and gave him the old heave-ho. What we have here is the old con trick; we're shown McKenna as a seemingly innocent, naive colleen in Ould Oirland, who wouldn't say boo to an erect phallus and gradually come to realize that she is a prototype serial killer before the term existed. Liam Redmond, Ann Crawford and Honor Blackman are along for the ride and those with a keen eye will note an uncanny resemblance between Maxwell Reed and another Max, Wall. Worth watching if it surfaces on the Late, Late Show but don't go out of your way.

melvelvit-1 Emmie, a chaste young serving girl, is driven out of her small Irish village by the womenfolk who hate and fear the effect she has on men. The parish priest, giving in to prejudice, finds her a position with a family in rural England but the same revulsion women feel in her presence, combined with mens' lust, lead the child-like girl to take revenge until (Divine?) intervention brings the sad, sinister story to a shocking conclusion.This movie amounts to a very subtle horror film in that the viewer never sees Emmie kill. A number of men are found dead after going off with her and, no doubt, the girl is responsible -but is she a succubus? A serial killer? Emmie, as portrayed by Siobhan (pronounced "She-vahn") McKenna (resembling a sensual Agnes Moorehead), seems to be the embodiment of "Original Sin" with the supernatural sex powers of a Lilith and she is eventually "hounded" to death a la the Biblical Jezebel. Based on the play "They Walk Alone" by Max Catto, the storyline is similar to Val Lewton's superstitious CAT PEOPLE in that sex (and the fear of it) can wreak havoc. Here, lust -and the ability to arouse it- are evil and, like Eve in the Bible, temptation has to be driven out. The way the young girl is persecuted is not unlike what happened during the Salem witch trials and the poor thing evokes audience sympathy throughout the film. All women -the only sex to sense the presence of evil- refer to her as horrifying and revolting so the audience may come to believe there's something unearthly at work. That the girl has a devastating effect on the male of the species is never in question. Handsome Maxwell Reed plays a carnival boxer who's infatuation unwittingly releases the girl's inner demon and pays a terrible price as does the family who, once again, intends to drive Emmie from civilization. Honor Blackman, in her first role, plays one of only two young girls who can abide Emmie's presence and this implies that the real problem may lie in the fears and hatreds of adults. Emmie herself is afraid of what's inside her and only uses her strange sex-power to defend herself from the lustful intentions of the opposite sex and the constant persecution by her own sex who seemingly won't be happy until the girl is permanently removed from society. The story begins and ends in a church and gives this rather Gothic tale a strange allegorical feel. If one discards the nebulous supernatural interpretation, humanity is a bit barbaric here and the moral, if there is one, is right out of the Dark Ages. Society had made the girl a killer. The film's very theme is of a dual nature- man's inhumanity to man vs. confronting something that may be "not of this earth". The movie's title and the presence of the Church throughout slants the debate in favor of the latter interpretation -and the fact Emmie plays sombre, "unholy" music on that venerable institution's various organs implies a stranger in its midst. There are a number of masterful set-pieces (the carnival, the countryside, the church services) that are visually arresting and shows the care and effort taken with this film. Directed with style by Lance Comfort, the baroque play of light and shadow, sanctimonious good and ambiguous evil, and a possible force of Nature that can't be tamed give this psychological melodrama, with its references to Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN, more than a semblance of "Brit Noir". The fact that McKenna has the same off-beat appeal (and thin upper lip) as that genre's masochistic temptress, Gloria Grahame, only adds to this impression. True horror fans may be disappointed -as will "noir" purists- but if one goes in with no expectations, they won't be disappointed and may even find themselves pondering some complex issues long after the movie's over.Recommended, for sure.