Devil's Partner

In a small rural town an unpopular old hermit sells his soul to the devil. He dies and his mysterious nephew subsequently turns up. A string of bad events follow in his wake.

This low-budget occult horror film is pretty decent considering its obvious lack of resources. It has a fairly by-the-numbers set-up but it maintains the interest just the same. Ed Nelson, who plays the evil nephew, is good and certainly looks the part. Interestingly, he uses animals to do his evil bidding - sometimes, possessing them, other times shape-shifting into them. This includes a dog, a horse and a snake. The scene with the horse is the best one in the film. In it, a wino is chased in the moonlight by a black stallion, which catches up with him and tramples him to death.

The movie on the whole is well handled and should please those with a taste for old cheap black and white horror flicks. Although a word of warning – don't be fooled by the cover art that is often used. It has a scantily clad woman riding a centaur…sadly, there's none of this to be seen anywhere.