31 Days Of Horror: Day 21: The Unseen #40-41: Lisa And The Devil/House Of Exorcism

(For those new(ish) to Things That Don't Suck The Unseen is a column where I examine the horrors of The DVD's that have made it into my collection without being viewed ooooooohhhhh!!!

In all seriousness, I'm guilty as anyone, when it comes to being a know it all on Titles viewed. So It's nice having a column all about reinforning the idea that I always have more to learn. So for the next week, it's going to be all Unseen All The Time. In order to give the red headed stepchild of a column a chance to catch up against my shameful neglect of it.

I'll just go ahead and say this now, there are going to be some bonafide classics coming up over the next week that I am flat out embarrassed to admit I haven't seen. But that's always part of the fun of being a cinephile isn't it?)





Why’d I Buy It?: Came In The Mario Bava Boxset I purchased.

Why Haven’t I Watched It?: Didn’t make the first the cut for my first Bava binge. Just never quite got around to it. Also I have a weird pet peeve about films that have two definitive cuts. And while it’s obvious that Lisa And The Devil is the preferred cut, just because House Of Exorcism is a bad Mario Bava movie doesn’t change that fact that it’s still a Mario Bava movie.

How Was It?: Depends which version we’re talking about. Of course.

Lisa And The Devil is as rumored, a latter day masterpiece, sumptuously styled, hallucinogenicly plotted, and more then a little personal. House Of Exorcism is on the other hand a borderline nonsensical Friedkin rip off so shameless that it makes Beyond The Door look like a piece of great artistic integrity.

Both film’s follow Lisa, an American Tourist who undergoes a profound spiritual crisis after encountering Telly Savalas, first in mural;


then in physical form.


Now Savalas has been known to cause spiritual crisis’s in many situations and sexual crisis’s even more.

(I mean how could you not?)

But in this case, things are made even more acute, by the fact that Telly is the Devil. The Lord Of Lies enjoys carrying around mannequins and lemon suckers, and also tormenting the souls of those that is damned.

Sevelas does this by having Lisa and a series of strangers undergo an ennui soaked spiritual fugue/rash of giallo killings, in an old manor in Lisa And The Devil. And by having her put on pancake makeup and swear at a Priest like a fifth grader who has just learned how in House. This footage was shot when the producers looked at Lisa And Devil and suddenly realized "Oh shit. We funded an art movie." followed by "We better put some exorcism in our Satan movie." Said footage was then shoved the cheap exorcism scenes in under the flimsiest of pretenses. Believe it or not, Lisa And The Devil is the more effective of the two.

What surprised me about Lisa And The Devil wasn’t how strange and arty it was. I had been well prepared for that. No what surprised me was how unadulteratedly lurid and vaguely trashy so much of it was. From a piece of vehicular homicide so gleefully perpetrated and filmed that I was actually taken aback. To one which is almost matched in delight with a candlestick bludgeoning late in the game.

And if Lisa’s ambitions and opaque surrealism sometimes cross the line into self parody, there are just as many where the dream logic tone just works. Most notably in the film’s climax upon a Ghost Airplane, that manages to be well and truly freaky.

Sevalas makes a game Old Scratch and Bava obviously put a lot into it. House Of Exorcism is just the same but less so. Aside from the tacked on Friedkin impersonation, the remainder of the film is just a strangely reedited chateau encounter. A re edit which strips away the dream logic and leaves in its place, absolutely no logic.

House Of The Exorcism may not make any less narrative sense then Lisa And The Devil. But it does lack that lunatic gleam of conviction to carry it through.

Black Sabbath

It's that time again. Final Girl's Film Club has risen to kick your ass. This month with Black Sabbath.

I like Mario Bava pretty much across the board, and given the size of that board that’s a pretty big statement. I put him easily above the fun but uneven Fulci, and even the best of Argento. I like Bava when he’s making moody little gothic films or gigantic pop art monstrosities. I like Bava when he’s making horror movies, westerns, crime flicks, sex comedies, sci fi, and yes even when he’s making Viking movies. There’s no time period of Bava’s I don’t care for, hell there’s not even a movie of Bava’s I don’t care for (The possible exception being the influential but overrated Blood And Black Lace).

The point is I’m what you could mildly call pro Bava, and given that Black Sabbath is considered by many to be Bava’s finest (though I’d give the title to the Psychedelic little gothic chiller Kill Baby Kill), not to mention being the film that inspired a certain group of acid worn British Hippies to down tune their guitars and to stop singing about evil and start wailing like demon monks where eating their skin (Meaning that Mario Bava invented both Heavy Metal and The Modern Slasher movie BY ACCIDENT) I can basically watch this movie at anytime.

Black Sabbath is a great little horror movie, it’s only real flaw the fact that Bava puts his weakest segment last (Depending on what cut you watch. I was reviewing Anchor Bay’s version on You Tube) and stilted framing devise that features Boris Karloff first rambling (In its oddest moment the intro ends only to have Karloff reappear and start another not particularly easy to follow tangent.) and then explaining that you’ve just watched a movie.

The first segement, A Drop Of Water is the best, featuring a greedy nurse who is tormented by the spirit of a patient whose corpse she robs. It’s a great minimalist piece of horror cinema. A grisly morality play with an ending that just doesn’t quit. It’s like one of the greatest EC Comics never made.

The second episode is just as strong featuring Boris Karloff at his best as a vampire cursed to dine on his family members. Karloff pulls off one hell of a performance here, investing his creature with as much sorrow and genuine menace as he ever did in the classic Universal days. It’s the kind of swan song that you always hope your old favorite one’s get, fueled not just by nostalgia but by the fact that Karloff, unlike so many others never lost his talent.

Like I said Black Sabbath ends with a whimper rather then a bang. Its not that the last part is BAD exactly, its just not, special. A decent enough psychological giallo with a pretty nice darkly funny ending, but after the last two films it just doesn’t hold up.

Still Black Sabbath is the sort of flick that you can’t help but have a good time with, a dark genuinely malignant horror film that features a couple of masters at their best.

THE RETURN OF 31 Days Of Horror: #26 The Girl Who Knew Too Much

Giallo, for the uniniated, is an Italian genre known for it’s violent style and stylish violence. Some featuring the supernatural, some merely good old fashion psycho killers. A Giallo has to be stylish, gory, terrifying, and ideally star an American star whose moment of glory has passed.

The Girl who Knew Too Much is consider the ground zero for Giallo movies. It’s director Mario Bava would later refine the style to near perfection, with Blood And Black Lace, but despite its rough edges there’s something that’s a lot of fun about The Girl Who Knew Too Much.

Bava is sometimes referred to as the Italian Hitchcock, I prefer to think of him as the Italian De Palma (At least in his modern day and "Pop Art" films his more traditional horror movies are another thing altogether) (And readers of this blog know that from me at least this is by no means an insult). A drop dead cool stylist, with a wicked sense of humor, a prankster’s sensibility, who can make your blood run cold at will.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much plays out like a darkly funny inverse of Roman Holiday. In what must rank somewhere as the worst vacation ever a young naïve tourist arrives in Rome only to become an unwitting accomplice to a drug smuggler, watch her great aunt die, get mugged, witness a brutal murder, and then get harassed by Nuns. This is in the first five minutes folks and it takes a downturn from there.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much is propelled by a slinky cool Jazz score and beautiful black and white photography (immaculately restored by Anchor Bay for the DVD release). Bava is a master here reigning suspense and scares with equal aplomb, and screwing around gleefully with the conventions of Giallo as he was inventing them. With its slick sense of humor, surprisingly light tone, none too brutal brutality, and quality scares it’s an ideal place to get a good first look at Giallo filmmaking, which is fitting as that’s exactly what it is.