HOUSE OF EXORCISM
Italy, 1977, 95 minutes, Colour.
Telly Savalas, Elke Sommer, Sylva Koscina, Alida Valli, Robert Alda.
Directed by Mario Bava.
Mario Bava has a very strong reputation as a popular film director of horror. During the 1950s he made innumerable sword and sandal films as well as photographing them. Towards the end of the 1950s he moved into horror with such films as Black Sunday, following with The Three Faces of Fear and Planet of Blood.
This is a spoof horror film, obviously derivative of The Exorcist which had appeared in 1973. It is a kind of spaghetti-horror film played for shocks and laughs. Elke Sommer is a tourist who is lost in a city and finds an old mansion which, needless to say, is sinister and haunted. Telly Savalas, popular at the time as Kojak, travelled to Italy to play the lead. This is a curiosity item.
1. The quality of this film as a horror film? How enjoyable, how repellent?
2. The influence of such films as 'The Exorcist'? The Hitchcock influence?
3. The importance of the structure: the mediaeval fresco and the modern tourist, the use of coincidences - Lisa and the past murders made present, the resolution of the exorcism? How involving was this for audiences?
4. How interesting a character was the devil? As a person initially met in the square, in the shop, as a servant and butler, as a Devil? As Telly Savalas parodying Kojak? How seriously was this character meant to be taken? How ironically?
5. Lisa as an attractive character? An ordinary girl as a tourist, as a victim of possession? all the Exorcist overtones of blasphemy, medical attention, unnatural strength etc? As an ordinary girl involved in a mystery? her behaviour in the castle, relationship with Maximilian? Was it possible for the audiences to identify with her? How serious a heroine was she?
6. The portrayal of the mother, her blindness, her role in the previous era, her possessiveness of her son? Her finally being murdered?
7. Maximilian as a hero turned psychotic murderer?
8. The portrayal of the guests as new characters for the plot? any insight, the couple and their estrangement, the chauffeur?
9. The dramatic importance of Father Michael? His taking Lisa to the hospital, with the doctor, the confrontation with the Devil, his temptations, his resisting them, the final exorcism and terror? How real and authentic did this seem? How contrived for film purposes?
10. The ugliness of the murders? The presentation of the victims at the table as puppets? All manouvered by the Devil?
11. How enjoyable are such serio-comic derivative horror films? As a genre in themselves?
