La amante del demonio

I love 1970s movies and Rosalba Neri so I'm going to be as fortuitous as anyone could possibly be. But this movie is just awful . There's no point to anything it's not scary, very little violence, anemic plot, there's no sex, Cinematografia lacking, there's just nothingness. I could devise a better movie than this and I don't know the first thing about making movies . The biggest surprise is how anyone could give this a higher grade than me at which point I think I saw a 7 out of 10 from someone. I could not wait for this movie to end. The good news is it's probably very hard to find . Complete flop.

You can't go totally wrong with a movie featuring the mouth-wateringly luscious and genuinely talented 70's Italian cult actress Rosalba Neri (aka Sarah Bay), but this is not one of her better films.

It starts in modern times (as of 1972) with Neri's character "Helga" and two of her blonde, generously breasted, mini-skirt clad girlfriends coming to tour a castle that is supposedly owned by Satan himself. For reasons that eluded me, they all decide to spend the night there (apparently it doubles as a bed-and-breakfast?). That night "Helga" has a dream where she is transported back to the 16th century where she is a virginal bride about to be married. While she is trying on her wedding-night garments, she sees a man looking through her window. It is apparently an ill omen for another man to see these garments, so she tracks the man down--perhaps not a good idea since he is wearing a crimson robe and hood, and, of course, turns out to be the Devil. The Devil demands she kill her husband on their wedding night and then join him as his lover. Meanwhile a spurned female lover of her husband is plotting to kill her. There are several subplots involving other characters (I don't know about anyone else, but I'm usually in ALL the scenes in my dreams). Perhaps the best is where an old witch lures her big-breasted virginal friends (all the characters in the dream are the same characters as in the modern story a la "The Wizard of Oz")to a cave where they are assaulted by two randy highway-men in a kind of defloration/orgy.

In a way this is the opposite of the standard Italian Gothic horror film. Where your typical Italian Gothic has a dumb or nonsensical plot, but an effective atmosphere and visual style, this has a fairly decent plot, but it's very hamhandedly executed style-wise. Some of it was no doubt the print I saw, which messed up the day-for-night shooting so that all the scenes seemed to take place in broad daylight (even while some on-screen characters remark on how dark it is!). A lot of it though is the fault of director Lombardo, who maintains a positively glacial pace and seems to cut away to a boring subplot every time the main plot threatens to gather any momentum. After a (very long) hour you do get to see Neri's incredible nude body, but it was used to better effect in at least a dozen other Italian horror movies and giallo thrillers. Neri herself isn't bad, but she's just a lot better playing a wicked villainess than an innocent virgin (and she was also about thirty-five at the time). This is not a bad movie if you like Italian Gothic horror, but it is kind of a disappointing one.

I saw this on a recent, as of 2024, blu ray release and was shocked when I went to IMDB to discover that I guess I'd seen it. Now how could I forget the film, well after watching it I can see how. It's not memorable. I had given it a 6 but I've revised that more to a 4.

The problems are the script and directing, both by the same man who seems to have little talent at either. The performances are just ok, no one seems very committed to a role, other than Neri. There are a few really beautiful shots of her, how could there not be?, but she's had better parts and looked better in much better films.

There is very little style and the shots at times barely cut together. The music score is pretty good but it stops and starts at odd moments sometimes in mid scene, it all feels like no one with much experience was at the helm of the movie.

For something that's supposed to be shocking, the violence and nudity are few and far between, not a problem if the drama is compelling, but it's not.

There is one laughable scene with a red hooded guy popping, like in Bewitched, in and out in various places. The editing is sluggish so you can tell one actor is freezing in place while the other moves and they start shooting again. It's really half heartedly done.

There is a sword fight and well, uh, that's about it, I guess there sort of is another sword fight eventually.

It's all rather flatly done and pretty dull, for a film called The Devil's Lover the whole devil angle is also dull and almost silly the way it's done. A film that doesn't know how to be erotic horrific or compelling, decent production values raise it above worse films, but it looks like what it is, a producer directing and not knowing how.

In the Severin 2024 release there is an interview with actor Robert Woods who claims he was brought in to try to save the movie, to edit the film, be in it in a small role added later and to direct some of it. Even with all that he says it's not better than just ok and I'd agree.

The 2024 release looks and sounds very good, features a dull commentary track with lot of silence between not too interesting things to say.

You gotta love the 1960s and 1970s European horror flicks. Most of them, anyway. "L'amante del demonio" (alternately called "The Devil's Lover" and "Lucifera Demon Lover" in English) is too slow-moving, and much of it looks like scenes that they added to fill space. There's no shortage of sex, but the movie has so much wasted potential. I prefer it when these movies have lots of blood and guts, and this story of a young woman who goes to sleep in the 20th century and wakes up in an earlier century (where she sees all manner of evil things) just doesn't have enough of that. I recommend sticking with a Jess Franco movie or a Michele Soavi movie if you're looking for some classic Euro-horror.

Three women stay the night at a castle supposed owned by the Devil - in the night, one of them has a dream where she is transported to the 16th century where a bunch of odd events take place.

The main selling point of this movie has to be Rosalba Neri. This Italian actress appeared in a number of genre films from around this time and always added quality to proceedings, in terms of her sensuality, sexual forcefulness and genuine acting ability. She's probably the best thing in this film too. Its an example of an Italian gothic horror film, at the latter end of the sub-genre's cycle. And on paper it does include a lot of promising elements - sexual deviants, vampires, religious fanatics, a red-hooded devil, a witch, beautiful maidens and ornate, crumbling locations. But director, Paolo Lombardo, was hardly a master at this kind of thing and, in fact, only helmed a further two minor films. The result is a fairly lethargic picture on the whole, with the odd interesting moment. If you like Italian gothic, it is certainly good enough for a whirl and Neri is always worth seeing in anything.