It's
funny how things sometimes turn around for the best. For years,
the original cut of Mario Bava's Lisa and the Devil
was close to being a 'lost' film, before finally emerging in the
late 1980s. Now, it's the most widely seen edition of the movie,
while the once omnipresent The House of Exorcism
– a ham-fisted re-edit with new footage – now languished
in obscurity. Finally, fans can make a convenient comparison between
the two films, as both are included in this excellent new Arrow
release.
Made in 1974, Lisa and the Devil is Bava's least
commercial movie – a visually arresting, barely comprehensible
tale in which tourist Lisa (Elke Sommer) wanders away from a tour
group in Spain after viewing a fresco of the devil, and finds
herself through the looking glass. After entering a shop where
the devilish Leandro (Telly Savalas) is purchasing a sometimes
very lifelike dummy, she finds herself lost, the side street she
is on somehow being far removed from the square she just left.
Wandering until nightfall, she accepts a lift with Francis (Eduardo
Fajardo) and Sofia (Sylva Koscina), only for everyone to become
stranded at the home of a mysterious Countess (Alida Valli) and
her weird son Max (Alessio Orano)... a home where Leandro just
happens to be the servant.
What follows is a dream-like study of madness, necrophilia and
the supernatural that floats along without ever developing a coherent
story. This might be a criticism of most films, but here, the
lack of a strong narrative is very much to the film's advantage,
as it takes on a nightmarish quality, trippily moving from bizarre
moment to bizarre moment. In fact, it's only when the film takes
a brief turn into a relative normality, with the revelation of
the crazed killer and his motivation, that it weakens.
However,
it's easy to understand why the film failed to appeal to distributors
or audiences at the time, as it is an uneasy hybrid of horror
and arthouse. The atmosphere is closer to dreamlike movies such
as Celine and Julie Go Boating or Last
Year at Marienbad than any conventional horror film,
but the more exploitative elements – and they are here,
even in this version – plus a couple of clumsy moments of
editing let it down... not to mention that it was unlikely that
a 1970s arthouse audience would give a film by Bava a second glance.
Falling between the two stools, it's all too obvious why the film
failed to work for either market, but with a new generation being
more understanding of the fine line that separates art and exploitation,
the film has finally found its audience.
Bava's visual style is impressive, his sense of the gothic and
the baroque giving the film a unique feel. And while the performances
are generally rather wooden (the exception being an impressively
sinister yet friendly Savalas), this actually adds to the sense
of unreality that the film has. It's a sedate tale and one that
might alienate less patient viewers, but it's undoubtedly a remarkable
work of art that even now, doesn't quite have the reputation it
deserves.
The
House of Exorcism, on the other hand, is an astonishing
mess. I can hardly blame producer Alfred Leone for trying to salvage
something from an unsellable film at the time, aiming to cash
in on Exorcist-mania by chopping chunks out of
the story and inserting new footage of Sommers in a hospital,
puking pea soup and frogs, cursing profusely and generally being
a poor man's Linda Blair. That this footage is intercut with the
original story where she is decidedly un-possessed makes the whole
affair, ironically, even less coherent than the original film,
and considerably less enjoyable. Fans of trashy Euro horror might
be entertained by the vigorously sleazy nature of the new footage,
which also crams in some gratuitous nudity, and the recut version
of the original footage also offers some additional / alternative
scenes (a sex scene between Koscina and chauffeur Gabriele Tinti
offers more boobs, for instance), but I can't imagine anyone claiming
this as their preferred version. It is, however, a remarkable
example of how a film can be radically altered long after completion
– something we don't see much of anymore.
This new release is as thorough an edition as you could hope for.
As well as both movies, there is a deleted scene – actually
a surprisingly raunchy extended cut of the Koscina / Tinti sex
scene – and an Italian documentary on the film that unfortunately
sheds very little additional light on the background of the production(s).
Alfred Leone and Elke Sommer do, however, turn up on a commentary
track for The House of Exorcism. There are also
plenty of trailers to round off a highly recommended release.
It's
funny how things sometimes turn around for the best. For years,
the original cut of Mario Bava's Lisa and the Devil
was close to being a 'lost' film, before finally emerging in the
late 1980s. Now, it's the most widely seen edition of the movie,
while the once omnipresent The House of Exorcism
– a ham-fisted re-edit with new footage – now languished
in obscurity. Finally, fans can make a convenient comparison between
the two films, as both are included in this excellent new Arrow
release.
However,
it's easy to understand why the film failed to appeal to distributors
or audiences at the time, as it is an uneasy hybrid of horror
and arthouse. The atmosphere is closer to dreamlike movies such
as Celine and Julie Go Boating or Last
Year at Marienbad than any conventional horror film,
but the more exploitative elements – and they are here,
even in this version – plus a couple of clumsy moments of
editing let it down... not to mention that it was unlikely that
a 1970s arthouse audience would give a film by Bava a second glance.
Falling between the two stools, it's all too obvious why the film
failed to work for either market, but with a new generation being
more understanding of the fine line that separates art and exploitation,
the film has finally found its audience. 
The
House of Exorcism, on the other hand, is an astonishing
mess. I can hardly blame producer Alfred Leone for trying to salvage
something from an unsellable film at the time, aiming to cash
in on Exorcist-mania by chopping chunks out of
the story and inserting new footage of Sommers in a hospital,
puking pea soup and frogs, cursing profusely and generally being
a poor man's Linda Blair. That this footage is intercut with the
original story where she is decidedly un-possessed makes the whole
affair, ironically, even less coherent than the original film,
and considerably less enjoyable. Fans of trashy Euro horror might
be entertained by the vigorously sleazy nature of the new footage,
which also crams in some gratuitous nudity, and the recut version
of the original footage also offers some additional / alternative
scenes (a sex scene between Koscina and chauffeur Gabriele Tinti
offers more boobs, for instance), but I can't imagine anyone claiming
this as their preferred version. It is, however, a remarkable
example of how a film can be radically altered long after completion
– something we don't see much of anymore.