Devil Worshipping Pilgrims

by Richelle
(Kent, WA)

When I was a young kid in the early 70's, I saw a movie that was on Saturday afternoon TV that scared me to death and I don't know the name of it.

The movie was about a married couple expecting a child that had moved into a new town. At night, the townspeople dressed up like quakers or pilgrims and had satanic rituals with animal sacrifices. An orphan teenage girl in their church needed a place to stay, so came to live with the couple and seduced the husband who was an artist. One time she was getting out of the bath and the wife was talking with her and saw a huge ugly looking bitemark on her shoulder that she explained as a dog bite, but it was implied that she was bitten by Satan. The wife became aware of the strange people in this town and it was soon apparent they were after her unborn baby and wanted her to die as soon as the baby was born so that the teenager could have the baby and the woman's husband.

There was a scene that they had the wife captured and had placed what looked like a barn door over her and putting stones on top of that. I guess she got away because the last scene was her in a city park with her baby in a buggy and a police officer on horseback came up to her to admire her baby and he happened to have a ribbon on him and he tied it to the baby buggy handle in a triple looped bow (which had been the husband's "signature hallmark".) The officer was actually the husband from the previous scenes and the movie ended with the mother seemingly thinking the officer had a familiarity about him.

If you could find out the title of this movie my lifelong mystery will be solved... thanks!