LISA AND THE DEVIL

Mario Bava’s haunting early 70s ode to necrophilia gets its UK HD debut courtesy of our friends at Arrow.

The film opens with tourist Lisa (Elke Sommer) in the hub of a sightseeing group as they’re being given a tour of an old Spanish city square. Their guide draws their attention to a huge fresco on a dilapidated wall, bearing an illustration of the devil. At this point, Lisa hears playful music emanating from a nearby backstreet and strays from the group to pursue its origins. As she negotiates the crumbling buildings around her, she comes across a small workshop. Upon venturing in, she discovers an array of creepy, life-like mannequins and a doll-maker in the throes of settling a contract with his client – who happens to be the double of the devil on the fresco (Telly Savalas).

Fleeing this scenario, Lisa then accepts a lift from a husband and wife pairing, along with their chauffeur George (Gabriele Tinti). It’s not long though before this clearly troubled couple and their philandering employee break down and turn to the nearest house for assistance: a decaying mansion.

Welcomed into the grandiose building by its distinctly odd master Max (Alessio Orano), Lisa is ill at ease with his blind countess matriarch (Alida Valli) and the increasingly off-colour relationship enjoyed between her new travelling acquaintances. But what really creeps her out is the fact that Max’s butler Leandro (Savalas again) looks alarmingly like THAT man … THAT devil ...

Lisa and her friends, however, stays on as Max’s guests. As the night progresses, it becomes more and more evident that Leandro and the Countess rule the roost – and engineer whatever weirdness follows (including adultery, an unexplained suggestion of déjà vu on Leandro’s part, and murder) …

Following the modest commercial successes of A BAY OF BLOOD and BARON BLOOD, producer Alfredo Leone gave director Mario Bava the artistic freedom to make his dream film in 1973. The end result was LISA AND THE DEVIL, a highly personal and consequently challenging meditation on sex, death and religion. It’s a slow burner and often comes across as surreal in its execution, preoccupied with metaphor and subtext to an extent that viewers hoping for a conventional horror show may switch off by the midway point. Even Alan Jones, in one of this disc’s extra features, emphasises the importance of ‘mood’ in the film; don’t go into it looking for high dramatics or shock theatrics. This is more akin in its ethereal visuals and deliberate, sometimes dialogue-free pacing, to a Jean Rollin film.

The narrative is loose, the pace dream-like and the performances … well, they’re odd. Sommer conveys confusion and astonishment in mainly silent expression, almost as if she’s been directed to act badly. Savalas has fun in his lollipop-sucking role, hamming it up enjoyably as the embodiment of welcoming evil. Tinti is his usual self: he gets it on with his female employer (Sylva Koscina), of course.

The film feels deeply personal to its director, to the point that some may find its arthouse-friendly slowness as rambling and the insistence on letting visuals compensate narratively for a lack of dialogue as tedious. But there is a beauty, a tone and an undeniable evocation of rich subtext here that rewards subsequent viewings.

However, Leone didn’t agree and he was baffled as to how he was going to sell such a film to his favoured drive-in audiences. In a ‘eureka’ moment that must’ve broke poor Bava’s heart, Leone dragged certain cast members back onto set and shot new footage that he could integrate into a re-edited version of the film, changing the plot into a convenient cash-in on THE EXORCIST. His bastardised version of the film was called THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM and, throughout the 1970s, this was the version made commercially available.

EXORCISM is a terrible film. It starts similarly to LISA (albeit the ‘deck of cards’ titles sequence is replaced by a ‘haunted house’ image; the original cut’s atmospheric score is replaced by bombastic library music) but soon veers off into mental territory as Sommer’s encounter with Savalas in the workshop now results in her being possessed by his devil.

She’s sent to hospital, where the doctors puzzle over her condition in-between her flashbacks and the arrival of a priest (Robert Alda) determined to exorcise the demon from her.

Yes it’s crap – really badly edited, acted and dubbed – but EXORCISM is a guilty pleasure for me. For all its badness, it’s a fun ride. I mean, come on, Sommer screaming the likes of "get your shitty hands off me" in a demonic voice, later spewing frogs, projectile vomiting onto a holy man while screaming "there’s your fucking daily bread" etc … what’s not to love?!

The travesty, of course, is that Leone was able to take the heartfelt, serious-minded and poetic work of a master such as Bava and artlessly mutate it into a cheap slice of schlock. But if you can get over this and focus on delights such as Sommer’s frankly bonkers performance of a woman possessed, then THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM definitely registers highly in terms of entertainment value. There’s even added nudity and violence in the producer’s cut.

The screener blu-ray from Arrow presents both versions of the film in new 1080p HD transfers. Both of these present the films in their original aspect ratios and look generally very good. Colours are lush, close-up scenes exhibit a healthy amount of detail in faces and the like, while grain and texture both seem natural. Some scenes are very soft but this appears to be the way they were intended – almost fish-eyed, as if they’re representing a dream sequence.

LPCM audio comes in a choice of English or Italian languages for LISA, both of which are very clean and have their own easily readable optional subtitles. EXORCISM is graced with its original re-dubbed English language audio, which is good but not quite so clean. It also comes furnished with optional English subtitles.

The disc’s animated main menu page offers pop-up scene-selection menus for each film, allowing access to them via 12 chapters apiece.

Each film carries an enjoyable audio commentary track. LISA benefits from a slightly academic but worthwhile contribution from Tim Lucas, who discusses the film’s themes and its troubled production history. Leone and Sommer are on hand for a slightly lighter, more muddled but no less listenable commentary track on EXORCISM.

"The Exorcism of Lisa" is an excellent window-boxed 25-minute documentary licensed from Nocturno DVD. You may have seen this before, but it’s still well worth a look, as it discusses the differences between both films and the controversy surrounding them. Assistant director Lamberto (son of Mario) Bava and screenwriter Roberto Natale are among those who get in on the fun.

Alan Jones provides video introductions to both films (3 minutes for LISA; 3 minutes for EXORCISM – both produced by Nucleus Films).

An unfinished 3-minute theatrical trailer for the LISA cut is interesting fare, and looks good considering it was never used. The trailer for EXORCISM, also 3 minutes in length, goes to great pains to sell the film as a clone of THE EXORCIST, and is inadvertently hilarious.

A 75-second "U Certificate" trailer for EXORCISM follows, which is pointless but amusing.

An extended cut of the love scene between Tinti and Koscina also makes it onto this disc. This clocks in at just under 3 minutes in length and, although softcore, gets quite explicit. It’s partially silent but it looks to be in decent nick despite a couple of moments of blackout.

A hyperbolic radio spot rounds off the disc’s fun.

This set also includes the following that were not made available for review purposes: reversible cover artwork, a collector’s booklet with notes by Stephen Thrower and an archive interview with Bava, and two DVD discs which house the blu-ray’s contents across them.

LISA AND THE DEVIL may be an acquired taste. THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM may be a strangely fascinating abomination. But they’re both great fun in their own way. And the best way to see either of them, along with a whole host of gratifying bonus features, is via Arrow’s incredible new blu-ray/DVD combo.

Review by Stuart Willis