A pizza delivery girl at the end of her financial rope has to fight for her life – and her tips – when her last order of the night turns out to be high society Satanists in need of a virgin sacrifice.

If the last 15 years of reality TV are any indication, America has a fascination with the lives of the 1% but while the dubious morality of hoarding vast sums of dynastic wealth has taken center stage, it lacks a certain fundamental evil. Enter Satanic Panic, a horror-comedy from director Chelsea Stardust that explores that most quintessential pastime of the ultra-rich, sacrificing blue-collar virgins to the demonic lord Baphomet for continued prosperity.

We follow Sam ( Hayley Griffith ), a beleaguered pizza delivery person who decides to make a delivery to the rich part of town to try and make up for a miserable first day on the job. Her poor luck won’t let up, however, as she is once again snubbed on the tip and decides to break into the house to demand what she’s owed. She ends up getting more than she bargained for when a coven of Satanists figure out that she’s a virgin and begin the preparations for her sacrifice.

From that point, it turns into a fairly standard cat and mouse style horror film bolstered by some entertaining performances and effects. Sam, despite being somewhat cloying in her innocence, develops into a self-reliant force of nature as she does battle with an entire neighborhood devoted to her destruction alongside her ally, Judi ( Ruby Modine ), a cult faithful turned nihilistic rebel by her mother’s deceit. Rebecca Romijn serves as the cruel and calculating high priestess of the coven who finds herself upstaged in most scenes by the envious and conniving Gypsy ( Arden Myrin ) who is responsible for much of this film’s comedic charm.

Satanic Panic finds a balance between its moments of intensity as Sam and Judi are pitted against seemingly insurmountable odds and a comedic core hat maintains a light-hearted tongue-in-cheek atmosphere throughout but I just found myself wanting more. Most of the coven has very little to do outside of Myrin and Romjin, though Jerry O’Connell gets a bit part as the patriarch of the coven that has fallen out of favor which gets a few laughs. The few big effects scenes are inventive and skillfully-executed with novel creature designs that glisten and contort in disturbing undulations reminiscent of Brian Yuzna’s work on Society and Re-Animator but these scenes are few and far between.

As cult escape movies go, Satanic Panic is fairly typical and hits all the usual marks but there’s enough here that entertains and surprises to elevate it above a lukewarm recommendation.