La bimba di Satana

Some sources (including the afore-mentioned "Stracult") consider this to be a superior film to MALABIMBA – THE MALICIOUS WHORE (1979), of which this is a revamp (and therefore sufficiently different not to qualify as a direct remake) but I certainly disagree. To begin with, there is only a fair amount of nudity but little sex in itself and none of the hardcore variety; in fact, it's rather heavier on horror content compared to the original, even going so far as to include a completely irrelevant (if reasonably eerie) marauding mummy scene!

On the whole, SATAN'S BABY DOLL is a much more somber film and, consequently, a good deal less entertaining than MALABIMBA itself (which, at least, had rampant nudity and campiness to compensate for its other deficiencies). Conversely, the later film is a more compact affair with not only less characters (7 in all) but a much shorter running time at only 74 minutes. Another good score is provided and I thought Mariangela Giordano (who, at 45, certainly looks great in the nude) was better here than she was in MALABIMBA. The lead, Jacqueline Dupre', is quite lovely as well (though I personally preferred Laennec) and, like her predecessor, this was her only movie to date.

Unfortunately, the cons greatly outnumber the pros in this case: the baffling butler characterization (and the resulting hideously hammy performance) is a definite eyesore, as is the sloppy editing (especially during the scene where the paraplegic uncle imagines Giordano writhing passionately in bed). Spaghetti Western regular Aldo Sambrell is curious casting for the unsympathetic vengeful head of the family and his sluttish wife (whose spirit possesses the teenage lead) is not all that attractive either (which did not prevent her from getting it on with the novice while still alive)!

When everything is said and done, I don't think SATAN'S BABY DOLL merited a DVD release of its own and would have been better served as a double-feature with MALABIMBA...not least because such a move would have decreased their collective purchase price and saved shelf space to prospective buyers! Curiously enough, there's no option to watch either film without English subtitles and I had to manually remove them during playback!

I don't quite know what to make of "Satan's Baby Doll", to be honest. As the title suggests, it's another cheap, wicked-minded and umpteenth excuse for Italian producers to come up with sleaze and satanic nonsense – and it is – but on the other hand it's a surprisingly stylish and well-made film. Yes, really! Well, talking in terms of early 80's exploitation standards and in comparison with the other titles on director Mario Bianchi's repertoire, that is. It even has a plot that is slightly above average, competent acting performances (I'm not kidding!) and genuine young beauty that sadly only ever appeared in this one film. Oh Jacqueline Dupré, what an angel you are. The sinister events all take place inside the walls of an ancient family castle atop a hillside. This location is always filmed from underneath in the valley, just to make really sure the viewer knows we're dealing with a very isolated setting here. The lady of the house just died, but she was involved with black magic rites and Satanism, so her malignant spirit attempts to return from the afterlife. She finds the perfect host inside the ravishing body of her young daughter Myra and commands her to kill all the remaining dirt bags in the castle. So what we have here, basically, is an Italian variation on "The Exorcist" (another one), but with a Gothic setting and buckets full of gratuitous nudity. Also living in the castle is a masturbating nun, a Peeping Tom in a wheelchair, a sleazy lawyer, a crazy voodoo-obsessed servant and the sickly jealous and tyrant patriarch. There are quite a lot of senseless dialogs and boring parts you unfortunately have to struggle yourself through, but the death scenes are fairly imaginative and Dupré beauty & sex-appeal brightens up the screen with every appearance she makes. The other female leads are filled in by Mariangela Giordano (yes, THE woman whose nipple gets bitten off by her creep son in "Burial Ground") as the household nun and by adult movie starlet Marina Hedman as the undead but still very horny Maria. This is bizarre early 80's exploitation, to say the least , but it's worth seeing if only for the imaginative choreography, the uncanny set pieces, the ominous musical guidance (courtesy of Nico Catanese) and the naked body of Jacqueline Dupré. Shallow? You bet!

Producer Gabriel Crisanti along with his then wife, the sumptuous Mariangela Giordano, produced and sometimes co-wrote a number of horror/sex movies in late 1970's, always displaying an appalling lack of good taste that was sometimes a good thing ("Malabimba" and "Burial Ground")and sometimes not such a good thing ("Giallo Venezia" and "Patrick Lives Again") depending on the relative talents of the director. (The first pair was directed by a somewhat talented hack, Andrea Bianchi, while the second pair was directed by talentless hack, Mario Landi). This movie is unusual in that Crisanto uses a third director, Mario Bianchi, the brother of Andrea, to basically remake his brother's film "Malabimba", and the result, rather than being repellent and unpleasant like the Landi films, is more just toothless and boring.

A woman is murdered by her drug addict husband, and (while still an attractive nude corpse lying on the slab) she manages to possess her nubile young daughter and uses her to get revenge on her husband, her husband's bent doctor (who was also her lover), her husband's crippled brother (who was ALSO a former lover), and the local priest because. . .well, he's a Catholic priest. She doesn't really NEED to possess her daughter though since she also seems to have incredible psychic abilities that among other things allow her to reanimate the dead.

Of course, the name of the game of all these movies is sex, and here this movie is a mixed bag. If you favor mature, voluptuous "madonnas" like Giordano you will not be disappointed with her portrayal of a compulsively naked and self-gratifying nun (the mother is also pretty damn attractive given the considerable handicap of lying dead on a slab for most of the movie). On the other hand, if you prefer the nubile, barely legal "lolitas" the unknown Jacqueline Dupree is a very poor substitute for Catyl Laennac in "Malabimba" in that she fails to masturbate with a teddy bear or fellate her own uncle to death or even get naked below the waist. What will be disappointing to either camp though is that the inter-generational lesbian sex scenes of "Malabimba" that pass for "the exorcism" have been replaced here instead by a strange scene of necrophilia (albeit one that makes necrophilia look pretty attractive). It might have been pointless to remake "Malabimba" to begin with, but this is compounded by the the filmmakers not faithfully imitating the first film nearly enough.

There is also, by the way, a hardcore version of this film out there, but while some may disagree, nowhere in the history of cinema that I know of has hardcore footage ever IMPROVED a movie. Not really recommended. Stick with "Malabimba".

"Satan's Baby Doll" is a true cinematic oddity, as it is such an extreme mix of good, and awful. The creators of this film had everything that they needed to make a true classic; access to a lavish castle on a cliff, decorated for royalty, a memorable music score, and a beautiful young actress in the central role. There is even a fairly interesting story here, of an angry mother who possesses the body of her daughter from beyond the grave, to exact revenge on the inhabitants of the castle. Seriously, the sets need to be seen to be appreciated. Italian director Luchino Visconti would have filmed one of his masterpieces in this opulent setting! Unfortunately the people behind the scenes were lacking in some regards. Beautiful images sit awkwardly next to very ugly scenes, of ugly old men biting the heads off of chickens and writhing around on the floor making guttural, vomiting sounds for long stretches of time. Unappealing scenes of actors past their prime, getting naked and having very graphic sex. To make matters worse, the director decided to film actual hardcore scenes for this film. This is the version I saw, and I can attest to the fact that they add nothing to this film. Said scenes include a woman in her late 40's/early 50's giving on-screen oral sex to a rather unattractive man in a wheelchair, and another scene of the same tired old whore performing oral sex on a completely disgusting old man, and there is a short insert of his penis entering her old-lady vagina. The young girl Jaqueline Dupre is of course involved with none of these tasteless scenes, (luckily for her!) Anyway, this awkward mix of artistic art-house beauty and ugly pornography don't really work. and it's a shame because much of the film really is gorgeous to look at, atmospheric and sad. In more capable hands, "Satan's Baby Doll" could have been a true cult classic. what we have instead is a result of a film maker who could not seem to make up his mind, whether he wanted to create art, or garbage. Strangely the end result is artistic garbage. i don't think i have ever seen any film as uneven as this; did it have two directors?

Mario Bianchi's A Girl for Satan is apparently a remake of Andrea Bianchi's Malabimba, and although I can't compare the two having not yet seen Malabimba; this remake is stylish and sexy enough to at least be considered half decent. I've read that Malabimba is a rather more hardcore affair; and it would seem that the director here tried to cut that out, and while this film does feature a fair amount of nudity; there's no hardcore sex scenes, but this does actually benefit the film as it certainly seems a lot more erotic than it would have been were it padded out with a load of sex scenes. The plot is mostly nonsensical but has something to do with demonic possession and some horny naked woman coming back from the dead. Our lead character is a young girl who gets possessed by the spirit of her dead mother; who was murdered by her husband. The mother uses the girl in order to get revenge on a whole range of people that had something to do with it; including the family doctor and her husband's crippled brother.

As is always the case with cheap Italian trash, the script here leaves a lot to be desired and there's far too many scenes in which the characters say 'that's impossible!'. In fact, it happens just about every five minutes or so and naturally it's not long at all before it starts to get very tiresome. The film's main assets belong to Jacqueline Dupré, who is simply stunning and doesn't seem to mind getting her kit off at every given opportunity; and that's no bad thing. The film does look fairly cheap; but some of the set design is nice to look and the lighting is also marginally impressive - which does help the atmosphere of the film. It does get a bit hard to follow at times because the plot line takes so many illogical steps; but the style and the leading lady do at least serve in keeping things mostly interesting. At just seventy minutes, the film is rather short so it doesn't really have to become too boring. Of course, it all turns out to be a big waste of time in the end as the film never goes anywhere and doesn't really do anything; but even so, there's worse trash out there and this does at least have some redeeming elements.