I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

One Damn Mario Bava Movie At A Time




Lisa E Il Diavolo (Lisa And The Devil) (1974) Italian

The House Of Exorcism (1975) US

Wait a minute - two different titles AND countries AND years? For the same movie? Yup and lucky you I'm gonna tell you why - most American filmmakers don't know when to leave good cinema alone. See, Mario made this nifty little film called Lisa And The Devil (released in Spain as El Diablo Se Lleva A Los Muertos or The Devil Carries The Dead). When it was time to show it in America, the powers that be determined it wasn't stupid so they had to dumb it down and re-shoot and re-cut the movie to be an Exorcist rip-off. 

Unfortunately I saw the US version first since I didn't know they'd done this and was going to pass the other when I noticed the very beginning was different... and I checked it out. Good thing I did or I would have missed a far superior picture than the first. Not that it was horrible, it was Mario's, just with a lot of extra gobbledy gook that really didn't fit in with the story and the whole thing seemed pasted or just plain smashed together. I wondered why it was his film but he didn't direct it - it's because he hated the changes and refused. Let's look at the simpler, better one first:

Lisa And The Devil: Lisa (Elke Sommer) is in a crowd of tourists in Spain checking out the sights. The group is shown an ancient Christian fresco outside a dilapidated building of some type. It supposedly depicts the Devil carrying off dead people, claiming their souls. Rumors and superstition say that the only reason the fresco is still in good shape while the rest of the building rots is that the Devil is taking care of it himself. Lisa hears some strange music, separates from the group and meets up with Leandro (Telly Savalas) and his partner in some sort of shop, making wax figures. Briefly as she looks at Leandro she sees a superimposed picture of the devil from the fresco on his face. As she leaves she realizes that the streets are empty, the town square with the fresco is nowhere to be found, and those she sees will not speak to her. She wanders until night time and finds a ride with a couple and their chauffeur, although soon the car breaks down in front of a large villa.

This is a family of Spanish aristocrats whose house is plagued by supernatural evil and dark secrets involving necrophilia (implied, not shown). Leandro is there, claiming to do all the family's shopping. He constantly smokes cigars and has his signature lollipops, he even offers her one (funny) which is what he did in real life - it just carried to the show Kojak (starting in 1973) and apparently he carried his habits to other projects. 

His other main duty is apparently making life sized puppets either of people or out of people - that's not totally clear but part of the fun. The story is a bit convoluted but apparently she is being kept at this house because she looks just like the dead lover of the blind Countess' son, Maximillian (an extremely gorgeous man named Alessio Orano who overacts outrageously but has the most beautiful blue eyes...). 

There are protracted but eerie scenes where Lisa is also shown as Elena, Max's lost love who had an affair with his mother's husband Carlo. Carlo seems to pop up alive, then as a puppet, then alive... it all has a very House Of Usher feel and you really can't tell where reality begins or ends. And I loved the use of lavender eye shadow on the 'puppets' or dead people, depending on what you believe - it was a subtle but interesting show of the look of death.

Soon people begin to die in horrific ways (the gore again is pretty darn good for its time). The mother makes the statement (to Carlos' puppet in a coffin) that all the events have been rigged and they've only been waiting for it all to end. Again. Or for the first time. Or forever. Bava is really good with keeping people guessing the real deal against what is seen. Finally all are dead, killed by an insane (but still gorgeous) Max, who then kills his  mommy and falls out a window prompting Leandro to say (as he's holding the puppet of Max's mother) 'They never stay still.' 

We then see as Lisa waking up naked (Max tried to, uh, love her but was unable) in a bed in an overgrown portion of the villa. Most of it has decayed to the point of collapse, the rest taken over by nature. She gets dressed and makes her way back to town - she's upset when a bunch of kids call her a 'ghost' because of the building she came out of. She catches a cab, gets to the airport and on the plane. Phew. She's done.

Until... things get really quiet. She looks around - there's no one. She starts running down the aisle. Compartment after compartment is completely empty. Frantically she keeps running down this impossibly long plane until finally she comes to a compartment with people - all the wax figures of the people she has just escaped from. Running back to the front of the plane she goes into the cockpit - the pilot is Leandro sucking his lollipop and she realizes she's never going anywhere sane again. She becomes Elena, a puppet herself, and collapses to the floor. Now that was a cool story. A bit confusing and a little complicated but good. Unfortunately the good ole' US of A had something a lot different in mind:

The House Of Exorcism: Oh boy what a mess this was but I'll try... it starts the same except after Lisa leaves the shop, Leandro smashes a plaster impression he has of Elena's face. At that exact moment Lisa falls down in a fit and starts her Regan imitation - struggling and screaming she's taken by ambulance to a mental hospital. Coincidentally, a Catholic priest named Michael (Robert Alda in a what-the-hell-are-you-doing role that was supposed to make the movie better - it doesn't.) is along for the ride. At the hospital we get the whole reddened eyes, contorted limbs, even the green puke all over the place - how the hell did they get Elke to agree to this? 

She performs like a trooper though, even adopting Regan's potty mouth. That was mostly the straw that broke Bava's back - pull out their intestines, pop an eye, cut off a limb, show a breast or two (by the way, nice ones Elke) but no swear words. So a guy named Alfredo Leone got the director's credit. He would live to regret that. My favorite line of Lisa's in this movie was when Michael asked her who she was and she says, "I am the asshole of the world." I think I peed a little at that.

Then we jump to the story in the first movie with the aristocratic family. It doesn't fit but these movie dum dums have decided that Lisa is possessed by all the people in the other movie and she's telling their story. I guess. Oh and as in the first, through the whole thing Leandro is smoking cigars and sucking lollipops -  if he had said 'Who loves ya baby?' I would have completely lost it... So smashed together is Regan... sorry I mean Lisa telling Michael her tale of damned woe - they have been living out the same scenario with the same conclusion for 50 years. The place their hell resides? In the building with the fresco of course. Duh. Sigh. 


In this one, Father Michael, after being confronted with his own checkered past and tempted to sin against his vocation, decides to try to exorcise the building since apparently he didn't do Lisa much good... he left her puking up frogs for crying out loud, what the hell? At the building, while he starts his rituals, a big wind blows him all over the place and he shouts the appropriate Catholic nonsense (Sorry but it never works, does it?) and we see faint figures of all the people in this perverted version of a great Bava story and then... nothing. It ends. We have no idea if he was successful or what the hell happens to Lisa. Nice. Stupid. Thanks a lot USA. Leone's plan to try and exploit the popularity of The Exorcist backfired, as many critics and viewers denounced the film as merely a blatant rip-off. Good call.