Starsky and Hutch (TV Series) Satan's Witches (1978) User Reviews

More Ridiculousness in Season 3

[kgraovac · 6/10 · 15 November 2022]

Thought not as outlandish as the 2-hour season premiere MURDER ON VOODOO ISLAND, this episode is more low-key in setting and tone but still ludicrous.

A vacation in a remote cabin leads the pair to a Satanic cult where they must rescue a teenage female sacrifice from the grip of devil-worshippers.

A rattlesnake figures into the plot, and the finale with the victim playing on-and-off with the circuit breaker is mildly entertaining, otherwise nothing much to recommend here.

IMO the most interesting aspect of this one is the appearance of Bess Gatewood as the gas station owner's daughter, who tries to apologize for the hostile reception S&H get from the townsfolk. Bess also appeared in the CHARLIE'S ANGELS episode "Angel Blues" as an ill-fated country singer who is given a lethal dose of heroin made to look like an accident. She really sells the scene--so much so that it's almost as disturbing to watch as torture porn. Both "Angel Blues" and "Satan's Witches" originally aired back-to-back on Feb 8, 1978--a strange coincidence how sometimes everything connects in the Classic TV universe.

The Cult Following

[gmoney65 · 6/10 · 21 December 2019]

Strangely enough back at the time this episode aired, you had the Jim Jones fiasco beginning and we look back now and wonder how many of these strange cults were taking their tragic places in society??

Which Witch Ate The Sandwich

[sambase-38773 · 6/10 · 6 April 2023]

I'll say right off the bat that I'm not really into occult type of entertainment. It's not really my thing. To this day I still haven't seen "The Exorcist", which was a famous occult movie from 1973. Everybody saw it but me. But I do like Starsky and Hutch and have the entire series on DVD. So I'm sitting home bored today and decided to watch this episode because it's...well...next on the list. So this is my reaction to this episode now, which I did see a long, long time ago.

Starsky and Hutch go on 4-day weekend and rent a cabin out in the wilderness. They hope to commune with Mother Nature, but instead run into the Devil himself, or at least Devil worshipers, basically a dangerous and psychotic cult.

When they get to the cabin and the nearby town, which is very tiny, everybody is hostile toward them except a woman that runs the small local supply store. That night they see in the distance the cult doing one of their rituals and don't realize what they are seeing and assume that it's just college kids "having a bash".

The next day, while Starsky is sleeping late, Hutch goes fishing in the "lake" which is really a pond and looks a lot like a toxic waste dump, but I guess that was the only shooting location that was available to the production team. Hutch doesn't seem to notice. That's good acting!

So Hutch runs into some of the bad guys and things get really tense. They almost beat the crap out of Hutch, but the cult leader stops it and warns Hutch not to come back. He swears that he will be back. He doesn't tell them that he's a cop. Personally, I would have told them. Just to make them think twice about killing me.

I don't want to get into spoilers so I'll stop right there. Basically, I enjoyed this episode to a degree. It's okay, but like I said I'm not really into occult entertainment. And some of the humor seems really forced in this episode, something I normally enjoy in S&H.

Fishing with Satan

[stones78 · 9 March 2015]

This is my first review of this series, and while the subject matter intrigued me, I also felt that the episode could've been handled a bit better. Look for familiar faces in Charles Napier and Taylor Lacher, as they do their best Mayberry police impression in the small town, which was obviously a Hollywood set. The town looks too fake to me, although the scenes in the woods was better. The cop buddies are visiting this small "town", and staying in a cabin for a few days that was offered to them; soon after, Hutch runs into some weird people wearing red hoods, and it becomes obvious those people are up to no good, especially after a snake is found in the cabin's fridge, and a pentagram is painted in blood on the cabin door to warn the cops to take a hike. The story gets more serious when it's mentioned that the Sheriff's(Napier)daughter is taken hostage by this weird cult. The best scene has the girl and the cops working together in the cabin, while some of the cultists get smacked around by our hero's. Overall, it was an interesting story, but I expected much better.

The best episodes of starsky AMD hutch

[simonegentilini · 10/10 · 26 March 2020]

A beautiful episode with suspense , humor and brief action that it see the relation of starsky And hutch

good

[petjack-48104 · 10/10 · 29 August 2021]

Ugual reviews from starsky and hutch on voodoo island.

Identity crisis

[monomerd · 5/10 · 29 July 2016]

This is a fine example of the show not knowing what it wants to be anymore or where it should be going. Shall we be a comedy or a drama? Let's throw in an equal mix of both and see what happens. What happens is kind of ugly.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mind the humorous banter between Starsky and Hutch. But when it goes on too long and becomes trite, it just takes away any validity to the scene. Does Hutch have to love the outdoors quite so much and does Starsky have to hate it quite so much to still be funny? The opening where Hutch and Starsky are saying the same words but with totally different meaning is quite funny, but then they beat the contrasting opinions to death and it gets to be enough already.

I love Starsky and Hutch when they get good dialog to work with on the bantering. I love them when they are being serious cops getting the job done. I don't love them when a) they are trying to impress women by being anything but themselves or b) they try to inject bumbling humor into a serious scene. Both happen in this one and the episode falls just short of becoming "Abbott and Costello meet the Satanists".

I don't know if forty years makes the difference, but the Satanists do not come off very menacing, even if they have kidnapped the sheriff's daughter. It makes little sense to hold her for several days before the human sacrifice, and even less that the town sits around and waits for her promised release, doing nothing, but whatever. It was nice of the head Satanist to chant the exact plans for the evening's sacrifice while Starsky and Hutch are hiding in the bushes listening. Very helpful.

Apparently, for the first time ever, the guys have gone somewhere without their service weapons. Why in the world would they not take their guns to the secluded cabin in the woods? There is no real answer to this except that it makes them less prepared and more bumbling - ha, ha.

The scene I really, really can't abide is when they are hiding behind the car arguing about who will distract the guard and who will save the young girl. You have got to be kidding me. You have a job to do, you are smart men who usually don't have to say two words to each other to know who's doing what to get the job done. That was simply ludicrous and was there for what? Comic relief? A girl...is being sacrificed....to Satan. Save her.

I do like the scene where they beat up the bad guys with the help of the lights going on and off. They almost play it too long, but it is an inventive use of their limited resources and feels smart. But then they shuffle the rescued girl outside (alone, so she gets caught again) and don robes. Why? That got them exactly nowhere and was dumb. Smart/dumb/smart/dumb......my head hurts.

Surely some people tasked with producing this show must have been hearing alarm bells by now. Take a time out and huddle in, y'all, 'cause we are losing our grip on reality. {Heavy, heavy sigh.}

"We would've been better off in Death Valley"

[JasonDanielBaker · 3 July 2012]

The odd couple undercover cops go on vacation over a long weekend to do some fishing on a lake at Captain Dobie's cabin. Starsky hates the outdoors but Hutch loves it. Their familiar arguing reiterating their contrasting life philosophies comes out continually.

They shop in the nearby town and locals are unfriendly contrary to what they've heard. They barely get out and back to the cabin as the sheriff (Charles Napier - in between Jonathan Demme movies) tries to run them in. They show their badges and tell him they better be left alone. But you just know that won't happen because it wouldn't make for much of an episode.

That same night a mysterious looking group of people in blood red robes making weird sounds appears on the other side of the lake. What could it be? The Bohemian Grove Ritual? No, it is the satanic cult that has some kind of hold over the town inexplicably holding their sacrifice right where they know two big city cops are on vacation. That would be fine except the cult practices sacrificial offerings of humans.

They also can't resist vandalizing the cabin with occult symbolism written in blood on the front door whilst Starsky ad Hutch were asleep inside. They then leave a rattle snake in the refrigerator for Starsky to find.

I'd say it is utterly remarkable that these upstate California devil worshippers could be that arrogant and dumb provoking two cops whom they know are going to leave in a couple of days anyway.

The resolution to this particular mystery renders the events leading up to it very nearly redundant. In any event it also covers territory previously done in season 2, episode 14 "Bloodbath' when Starsky was kidnapped by an evil cult. I regard that episode as among the very best in the entire series. They don't exactly top it with this copy.