the audience applauded

Sick Product of a Sick System

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Blistering performances.

By the late 60's, a series of commercial failures caused Mario Bava to lose his deal with American International Pictures, but the successes of Twitch of the Death Nerve and Baron Blood turned his fortunes around. Now, he was allowed to make movies without studio interference.Bava was allowed to create Lisa and the Devil as a non-commercial film, but it flopped in Italy and the U.S., where it would be retitled House of Exorcism with twenty minutes of the film cut and a new scene with Elke Sommer and Robert Alda would rip off The Exorcist. Producer Alfredo Leone wanted this new footage to have profanity and strong sexual content, which Bava refused to do. He even tried to get Sommer to not be in these scenes and dropped out of the film. The re-edited (that's being really fair to what is a hack job) version also flopped. For a much more in-depth telling of this story, please visit Groovy Doom.So what is Lisa and the Devil about? Well, Lisa is a tourist who wanders away from a guided group tour to explore an antique store where Leandro (Telly Savalas, who if you ever get the chance to visit Pittsburgh, is featured in an epic photo in the Hollywood Bowl area of the famed Arsenal Lanes bowling alley) is purchasing a dummy. She looks at the man - who looks just like a demon she saw in a fresco - and runs. She then meets a mustache wearing man who recognizes her, but she bumps him into falling down the stairs to his death (or maybe not).Lisa can't find her way back to her tour, so she follows a couple and their driver (who is secretly dating the wife), but they break down at a mansion where Leandro coincidentally (or maybe not) works as a butler for the blind Countess and her son Maximilian, who begs his mother to let them stay.The mustache man may (or maybe not) still be alive, as he stalks Lisa. There's also a mystery guest in the mansion who may be a prisoner and Lisa may (or maybe not) be Elena, Maximilian's long-lost lover. And oh yeah, the mustache guy is really Carlos, the Countesses second husband and Elena or Lisa (or maybe not) was sleeping with him.This next part needs some careful wordsmithing. Carlos - that's mustache man's name - is being prepared for burial by Leandro while still being alive. Lisa freaks out as he tries to take her away from the mansion, but he's killed by Maximilian, but then he's not even real, but the dummy Leandro bought at the start of the movie.If that made you say, "What the fuck?" then get ready. The young driver loverboy is killed while fixing the car, but Leandro offers to cover it all up if he can take care of the body. The husband demands that his wife leave with him, so she runs him over with the car. Then, she is murdered by Maximilian. Whew.Lisa is knocked out by all of this and Leandro dresses her like Elena. Turns out he is a demon indebted to the Countess and Maximilian and forced to help them play out their lives again and again and again, using dummies to represent each of them. As Lisa arrived and interrupted his shopping for new dummies, her real form must now become Elena. But wait? Isn't Lisa Elena? That's what Maximilian thinks, as he takes her to the secret room, where we learn that Elena's corpse and ghost are the mystery guest. He drugs Lisa and starts to rape her when the ghost laughs at him, causing him to stop and tell his mother what he has done: he killed Carlos for betraying his mother by sleeping with Elena, but imprisoned her rather than letting her get away. When his mother tells him the only next logical step is to kill Lisa, he kills her instead.He then finds every dead person all gathered at a table for dinner. His mother tries to kill him, so he jumped out a window and is impaled on a fence. Leandro appears behind the dead bodies.Lisa escapes, but not before she sees Leandro refuse to accept a doll of her. On an amazing 1960's plane, complete with spiral staircase, she discovers that the entire plane is empty, except for the pilot - Leandro. She collapses and becomes the dummy that he carries back to the house.Lisa and the Devil was Bava's dream project turned nightmare. The end result - which didn't play in wide release in the director's lifetime - is a waking dream of doom, dread and predestined death. I wouldn't recommend it if you're looking for a straight narrative, but it's a strong film for those seeking to explore and be mesmerized.

Well, by now you hopefully have noticed that Lisa and the Devil AND House of Exorcism(a badly cut film pieced with an Exorcist rip-off story) are counted here as one film only. Bad idea as these really are two separate films. I give Lisa and the Devil a 7 - House of Exorcism a 3. The movies are completely different in tone, point of view, story, values, and virtually any other category you might think of DESPITE the fact that House of Exorcism is made up from Lisa and the Devil for at least 75%. From what I understand Lisa and the Devil was not making money because it is a typical Bava film - dreamlike, artsy, gorgeously painted cinematography, ambiguous meaning, etc... House of Exorcism uses much of that film to support Elke Sommer falling to the ground and being consumed by a demon. She will later vomit, curse, wriggle, spew toads, and turn into another woman sans any garments - we see the peaks and the valley! Carmen Silva is the "actress" and she is beautiful if nothing else - and the only thing in House of Exorcism worth seeing unless you want to see Robert Alda play the blandest exorcist alive or Elke Sommer do all those aforementioned things and say lines like, having been asked by Alda where she came from, "From a c*nt you jerk." She also uses the f word and her breasts are struggling to break out. The House of Exorcism version is classless and void of any continuity. Director Mickey Lion(producer Alfredo Leone) does not have Bava's talent. He also didn't have Telly Savalas any more - and tries to piece his scenes with the rubbish he adds on. It really is dreck of the worst kind. Let's talk about Bava's film, Lisa and the Devil. It is dreamlike, atmospheric, wonderfully filmed. Bava again uses colors like few other directors. This go round lots of greens, blues, and variations of whites. The story is fairly predictable(and a bit over-used by Bava) but the execution is wholly worthwhile. The lush musical score goes hand in hand with the scenes as they unfold. Composer Carlo Savina does a fabulous job. The script in this one is more ambiguous than most Bava films: does what happen in the movie really happen? What was with the ending? Was the house Hell? Was Savalas the Devil? Many more questions. The acting is good all around. Elke Sommer is gorgeous(and shows her top too!). What a body! Alida Valli plays another cryptic matriarch well. Telly Savalas; however, steals the film. From the opening of white gloves dealing cards that show the players in the film, to an etching on a fresco suppose to be the devil, to Savalas wearing a beret or serving dinner as a butler, Savalas gives a commanding performance in that he is the focal point of the acting attention. It helps that he has some great lines, but mind you, they are great lines because HE makes them great lines. Lines like, "Most things aren't that easy to mend," "Is this the face that launched so many deaths," and, my favorite, "Her eyes? What color? changeable -but by candlelight blue." I enjoyed Lisa and the Devil even though I confess I am not even close to being able to tell you with any degree of accuracy what just happened. But heck! It's Bava!

This film is credited as "La Casa dell'exorcismo"/"The House Of Exorcism" here, but Mario Bava's original version is the one called "Lisa e il diavolo"/"Lisa And The Devil". Mario Bava, arguably the greatest Horror director of all-time, created his most bizarre work in 1972 with "Lisa And The Devil". In order to attract a wider audience in the United States, the film was only released in a re-edited form, as "The House Of Exorcism", which added some elements and did not even give full credit to master Bava. Sadly enough, the original Bava cut was not released until after his death. Fortunately enough, it is available now. This is a review of Bava's original version, "Lisa And The Devil".While not one of my absolute favorites by the great Mario Bava, "Lisa And The Devil" is arguably one of his most underrated films. The film does not quite reach the brilliance of earlier Bava masterpieces like "Black Sunday" ("La Maschera Del Demonio", 1960), "The Whip And The Body" ("La Frusta E Il Corpo" (1963), "Blood And Black Lace"("Sei Donne Per L'Assassino", 1964), or "Kill Baby... Kill" ("Operazione Paura", 1966), nor that of his latter day highlight, the stunning Crime Thriller "Rabid Dogs" ("Cani Arrabiati", 1974). Even so, "Lisa And The Devil" is an elegant and mesmerizing Horror film that is absolutely sublime in many aspects. The whole approach of "Lisa And The Devil" is more bizarre, surreal and merely psychological than in his other films, and furthermore uses the Satanic formula which was immensely popular around the time. While "Lisa and The Devil" is a bit slower than his other early 70s efforts, such as his last Gothic Horror film "Baron Blood" ("Gli Orrori Del Castello Di Norimberga", 1972), the film maintains a wonderful atmosphere of insanity and doom.Due to the film's bizarre nature, "Lisa And The Devil" is probably the Bava film that makes a proper plot synopsis most difficult. This is not a bad thing, though, as every Horror fan should experience this film for himself (or herself) anyway. The film begins when tourist Lisa Reiner (sexy Elke Sommer) leaves her tourist group, and is suddenly stuck in a beautiful but eerie city center of Toledo. Unable to find her tourist group, Lisa, as well as a bunch of other people find refuge in an eerie mansion, where an old countess (Alida Valli) lives with her son (Alessio Orano), and a very sinister housekeeper (Telly Salavas)... I do not want to give anything away, but I can assure that "Lisa And The Devil" is a film that creates a hypnotic and nightmarish atmosphere like hardly another. The incredibly sinister Telly Salavas gives this film a cult-status and there is a lot more. The cast includes several familiar faces for Italian Cult buffs. Elke Sommer and Silvya Koschina are lovely to look at and they also are also great in their roles. The great Alida Valli, best known for her roles in two Horror-masterpieces, Dario Argento's "Suspiria" (1977) and Georges Franju's "Eyes Without a Face" ("Les Yeux Sans Visage", 1960), is once again superb as the old countess. The cast also includes Eduardo Fajardo ("Django") and Italian Exploitation regular Gabriele Tinti. The absolute greatest performance (by far) in this film, however, remains that of Telly Salavas who is ghoulish and great beyond comparison. As all Bava films, "Lisa And The Devil" is wonderfully photographed in beautiful yet exceptionally eerie Gothic settings. The city of Toledo is a terrific setting for a film like this, and the eerie mansion is the most uncanny and melancholic setting imaginable. The score by Carlo Savina is great and very eerie, and perfectly emphasizes the mood of a nightmarish fever dream. Aditionally to the nightmarish atmosphere, the film also has several genuinely terrifying shock-moments. As stated above, "Lisa And The Devil" is not one of the absolute greatest films by Mario Bava, but it is definitely a great one. The film is a little more slow-paced than Bava's other work, but its nightmarish atmosphere is exceptional. A mesmerizing film that no Horror fan can afford to miss!

Lisa and the Devil (1973) ** (out of 4) A tourist (Elke Sommer) gets lost in an unknown European city but soon ends up at a strange mansion being run by a weird son, his even stranger mother and their lolly-pop sucking butler (Telly Savalas) who might just be the devil himself. Director Bava was offered by his producer the chance to make a film of his choosing and this is the one he picked. The film turned out to be a bust as it couldn't be sold, which resulted in the producer making a rip-off of The Exorcist but today many people see this movie as the director's masterpiece. Sadly, I'm not one of those people as I find this film technically thrilling but as far as entertainment goes this thing is pretty hard to get through. I love to see art mixed with horror but to me it just doesn't work here. I think you're either going to get into the film or you're not and for me I've never been caught up in its story, surreal nature or that what the hell atmosphere it has going for it. The early scene in the film has Sommer getting lost in what appears to be a maze. She's attacked by a man, it gets dark and she still hasn't found her way out. I believe this sequence is here to draw the viewer in but for me it took me out of the film. As I said, on a technical level this movie is near flawless but the story is also important to me and Bava never can drag me in and instead the entire film feels like one scene dragging after the next. Bava's camera-work is top-notch once again as is the beautiful lighting. The music score is also very well done and matches the look of the film perfectly. Sommer turns in a decent performance but I couldn't help but wish someone stronger was in the role. Savalas does a fine job and we see his lolly-pops a while before his famous TV show.