While on a trip to Spain, Lisa Reiner (the beautiful Elke Sommer!!) gets hopelessly separated from her tour group, leading to a bizarre oddyssey into the supernatural. Lisa keeps running into a strange, bald guy w/ a mannequin (Telly Savalas from Horror Express), and she apparently kills another man by accidentally knocking him down some stone steps! Poor Lisa wanders through the labyrinth-like streets / alleys of Toledo, having one weird encounter after another, until finally hitching a ride w/ a married couple and their chauffeur. All is well until they have engine trouble, winding up at a huge mansion in the middle of nowhere. The only residents are an old blind woman (Alida Valli), her odd son (Allessio Orano), and their butler (Telly again!). Things drag on for awhile while the dream-like atmosphere builds. Then, once the first murder takes place, all bets are off! The rest is an insane murder-spree w/ ghostly implications. Lisa and her fellow travelers are caught up in a maelstrom of madness and death. The finalé is an example of the perfect downbeat ending. Telly is devilishly good fun! A classic...
August 1, 2008Wow!
What an absolute freak-out of a gothic horror movie.
Surrealistic mayhem.
Beautifully filmed, scored and acted.
I will have to watch it twenty more times to "get it",
that is, if there is anything to "get",
not that it matters.
Something to do with the nature of existence,
the human condition and evil, no doubt; maybe.
Great film.
March 13, 2008 |  | Overrated, Flawed Bava Horror |  |
Lisa and the Devil (1973) and The House of Exorcism (1975) are variants of the same Mario Bava horror film. Lisa and the Devil was intended to be one of his more personal horror tales, but it's subtleties (at least for a horror film) were associated with little popularity and the film was a big money loss for its producers. Trying to recoup their losses, the studio re-edited the film, shot a bunch of new footage and changed the plotline to cash in on the popularity of The Exorcist, resulting in The House of Exorcism.
Lisa and the Devil is largely a mood piece in which a young woman wanders through a confused gothic landscape and mansion for which she has some sort of unexplained, supernatural connection. There are a lot of beautiful images and creepy set ups, but what might have been a great horror film is sabotaged by some very uneven acting, lousy dubbing, heavy-handed use of music, and fairly predictable plotline excesses. The gratuitous violence is to be expected in a Bava film, but it winds up solely gratuitous and not shocking.
If about a third of "Lisa" was edited out, removing some of the worst acting and plot cliches, the film would be more effective, especially emphasizing the disorienting, surreal mood that hints at a dreamlike logic.
As flawed as Lisa and the Devil is, House of Exorcism bombs beyond belief. With scenes almost literally copied from The Exorcist, complete with chapped lips and green vomit, the film clumsily tries to integrate newly filmed demon possession sequences with footage from "Lisa". The acting is even more stilted and the compositions and visual design lack Bava's visual flair. Even if you enjoy films that are "so bad they're good", this just winds up being dull and annoying. One can sympathize with the producers, who cut this mess together because "Lisa" generated no interest with distributors -- "House" wound up making some box office dollars. Perhaps its greatest notoriety now is that Woody Allen showed a clip of it in Annie Hall, cracking a joke that the film was proof perfect that society was coming to an end.
December 10, 2007 | | One Of Bava's Best...At Least I Think So | |
Lisa and the Devil is one of those wacky horror films that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, but it's bizarre, stylish and just coherent enough to be an interesting ride. It involves a tourist who's entryway into one goofyass night is a painting of the devil she sees in a village square. After the painting, she runs into Telly Savalas(he looks like the devil in the painting), who's carrying and talking to a giant doll. Then she runs into an old love of hers(who looks like the doll Savalas was carrying), accidentally kills him, and hitches a ride with a rich couple and their driver(who's also banging the wife). The car breaks down in front of a mansion owned by a blind woman, her son, and their butler....Telly Savalas!! From that point on, it's one bizarre night of hallucinations and murder and sex and dolls and lollipops. This isn't one of those movies that throws a bunch of weird stuff at you and then slaps you in the face with an explanation in the closing minutes. It does through you little helpful hints here and there so you're not completely lost or anything. As strange and vague as the movie is, I wouldn't exactly call it hard to follow. But in the end, you'll most likely have more questions than answers(unless you're one of those high falootin' film snobs who seems to have an answer for everything). You won't be able to deny it was unique though! This is one of my favorite Bava films. It kinda sets the tone for similar "dream logic" horror films that would come out of Italy in the later years like Argento's Inferno or Fulci's The Beyond. Needless to say the modern filmgoer will chalk this one up to being pointless and stupid. Hey, at least it's quite unlikely this will get remade!
July 15, 2007Hallucinatory,what a ride this movie is.it will keep you guessing till the end,personally i think this movie is a masterpiece of italian horror,They just do not make them like this anymore.It is being released by anchor bay soon in a mario bava boxed set all of his movies are fantastic.get it while you can
February 23, 2007More reviews at Amazon.com ...
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