Il demonio

I have to admit that I have never watched someone throw a dead cat at someone else in a film before. I'm not sure if the dead cat was a metaphor for something or other, because The Demon struck me as one of those horror films that has one foot stuck in the Art-house, so everything may just represent something else.

What I gathered from the film is that the populace of rural Italy are a very superstitious bunch who are not very good at coping when one of their own exhibits the signs of severe mental illness. I'm guessing these days if someone had walked in on young Purif piercing her chest with a needle, gathering the blood in cotton, then burning it, then giving it to a young man to drink in some wine, they may have called in a Doctor rather than accuse her of being a witch.

The young man in question is Antonio (Wolff) and he is due to marry a more stable girl, much to Purif's dismay. Purif doesn't do herself any favours however by giving Antonio the wine, watches him drink it, then shouts something like "Ha! You're drinking my blood!" It may surprise you that Antonio goes ahead with the wedding anyway.

The director here goes out of his way to show that the people in this village have just as many strange routines as Purif, from hiding a blessed scythe under Antonio's wedding bed, or shouting at an oncoming storm to break and feed the crops with rain. Not a lot goes right for these folks and naturally they begin blaming the wild eyed girl who goes around saying she has a demon inside her.

I guess the question is: Does Purif have a demon in her? Antonio wakes up covered in boils, the candles in the church start burning low, a boy is found drowned and the last person to see him was Purif. I'd probably know the answer but the only word I understood during the final narrative was the word 'free'.

This is a good film that leaves it up to you to decide if it's a horror or not. There's plenty of scenes that must have shocked way back then (Purif's raped twice by dirty old men, she does a crazy spider walk while being exorcised, also tries to strangle a nun), so I'm not sure why this one is so obscure.

Brunello Rondi's remarkable drama takes a very naturalistic approach to its tale of Witchcraft and Possession in Southern Italy. An attractive young woman, Puri (Daliah Lavi) seems to be in the throes of Amour Fou with a young man, Antonio (Frank Wolff). When he tells her he's getting married, Puri's rage turns into casting an evil spell on Antonio, his marriage and future offspring. Puri's rantings give way to bouts of apparent possession, speaking in tongues and contortions of her body*. She is condemned as a witch and presented to the local priest for exorcism.

Rondi, a long-time screenwriting collaborator with Federico Fellini (including two Oscar nominations) fashions his film as a folk horror tale in the vein of a WICKER MAN, KWAIDAN or THE WITCH. What is real and what isn't is far less important than an exploration of an unfortunate soul and the locals who cast her out. Rondi's script is replete with specific local Italian traditions and rituals which provide added layers into his examination of the intersection of superstition and religion and how they seemingly over-ride any compassion for the woman's mental health and stability. Cinematographer Carlo Bellero's stunning Black & White camerawork pits Puri against the forboding barren landscape capturing her feeling of isolation from her people and home. Piero Piccioni's score is quite good. None of this would truly work without a superb performance by Lavi (who is best known in the U. S. for the original CASINO ROYALE and TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN). She brings an earthy intensity and her background in dance allowed her to perform her seemingly superhuman stunts.

IL DEMONIO is a dark but uniquely fascinating example of tragic folklore on film.

* This 'Spiderwalk' has drawn comparison the William Peter Blatty and William Friedkin's THE EXORCIST released a decade later.

With stark but glorious chiaroscuro and solid performances, Il Demonio is a creepy trip through a world of ritual, magic, and superstition. Ms. Lavi drives the film with her terror and passion. I felt like I was peeking into a world in which logic was replaced by myth. What an experience.

Until I posted this review, only 8 people had reviewed Il demonio and I feel like that's a real shame that it does not get the attention of some of Bava's or Fulci's films. In fact, I don't have hard proof of this but I believe Il Demonio was Fulci's inspiration (in part) for Don't Torture a Duckling.

Il demonio is a genuinely disturbing film and there is no way that it's not a classical inspiration to later films about witches and witchcraft. Like Fucli's later film, Brunello Rondi set his film somewhere in an undeveloped area of rural Southern Italiy where superstition and ignorance prevent women from expressing themselves sexually or at all as individuals, and even in the instance of mental illness or emotional disturbance, families abuse their sick relative and authoritarian religious figures abuse and take advantage of mentally unstable people, particularly sexually abusing women and young people.

Il demonio may even be landmark for its time, i am not enough of an "expert" about film to say for sure - because it challenges the Roman Catholic Church head-on in a way that craftier arthouse flicks or more satirical horror films about Satanists or hippies did not in the 1960s.

A bleak portrait of a woman abused by her father and sexually molested by religious figures and eventually other men does serve as a mirror for Don't Torture a Duckling nearly a decade later with its theme of religious abuse and a very specific character rejected as a witch by the entire town for having mental health issues or emotional disturbance after losing her infant child.

I just wish Il demonio had been in color. One of my gripes about Don't Torture a Duckling which keeps me from rating it a 10 as a giallo is Fulci's outright derision and snobbery towards Southern Italian peasants (Fulci was born in Rome) that is illustrated by how ridiculous most of the peasants are and how oppressive BROWN is throughout the film. Maybe that's how Fulci felt, maybe he was trying to communicate oppression by lack of color, but Southern Italian culture is generally the opposite - so colorful, bold and theatrical that I really do wonder what Il demonio would have looked like in color. I bet it would have won awards.

Barely seen, underrated and overwhelming, this is an astonishing film anticipating The Exorcist by ten years yet having within it several key elements, not least the most incredible and prolonged spider walk - in a church! The black and white photography is wonderful, the soundtrack spot on, the dialogue excellent and the central performance of the possessed one, by Daliah Lavi, is hypnotic. After the opening sequence where we see her jerk her head at a sound within the house and pass her hair across her face I feel like applauding but consider it a little premature. No worry, there is not a scene in this film that does not astound or disturb. From the wondrous performance of the aforementioned Ms Lavi, the perfectly good support, or lack of, from Frank Wolff, to the fearful villagers and the daunting landscape, this is near perfect film making.