Exorcismo

I know I'm in the minority, but I've always considered The Exorcist to be a rather dull film when the pea soup isn't hitting the fan. Exorcismo, a Spanish Exorcist rip-off starring Paul Naschy, is boring even when the possessed girl is doing her thing, and only regular nudity from its pretty female cast members prevent the film from being a total waste of time.

The girl with the demon problem is Leila (Grace Mills), whose heretical activities with a local Satanic cult has left her possessed by the malevolent spirit of her late father. Naschy plays priest Father Adrian Dunning, who is called by the girl's stepmother to lend his expertise. Meanwhile, people are turning up dead with their heads facing the wrong way.

The main problem with this film is that Leila doesn't develop cracked lips, crazy contacts, and bad complexion until well over an hour into the film, and even when she does, it's not very impressive, the few pesetas in the coffer not nearly enough to replicate the head-turning, vomit-spewing craziness of The Exorcist. With everything leading up to the possession being boring (nudity excepted), and everything after being almost as boring, the result is... well... boring.

Bums, boobs and bush aside, the only thing I found remotely interesting was that, despite being Spanish, the film was set in England (although certain shots of arid countryside are clearly not the rolling hills surrounding Bristol), and that Father Dunning is only too happy to carry out the exorcism without the go-ahead from his superiors (I always thought that express permission had to be granted by a bishop).

Something is wrong with Leila (Grace Mills) and Father Adrian Dunning (Paul Naschy) is called in to evaluate the situation.

Some may call this a ripoff of The Exorcist with Linda Blair, but I'd rather see the flesh displayed here than some special effects. The fact is that The Exorcist was not seen in Spain before this film came out.

Anyway, it's a Paul Naschy film, and I am a completest.

You won't see amazing special effects, because they didn't exist. So it looks fake at times, but it was a good story and an interesting film.

Paul Naschy stole the show. I wasn't his finest hour, but he was head and shoulders above the rest. The makeup was good, and one could ignore how the film seemed to go all over the place just to see Naschy.

Paul Naschy is a kindly priest in this psycho-demonic thriller, with plenty of nods to THE EXORCIST without being a complete clone thereof. One obvious difference is that the girl in EXORCISM (aka: EXORCISMO) is possessed by her eeevil, dead father instead of the devil.

This movie is on par with other European possession epics of the era.

BEST BITS: #1- The possessed girl's hideously transformed eyes! #2- The devil dog attack! #3- The naked devil women running around during the Satanic ritual sequence! #4- The all-too-short grand finale!

Another triumph for Mr. Naschy...

Paul Naschy claimed to have started writing the screenplay for "Exorcismo" long before "The Exorcist" came out. It is difficult not to conclude that he finished writing it afterward. There is a scene in which the possessed young woman interrupts a party with some Satanic behaviours that immediately recalls the famous "Exorcist" urination scene.

However, the subtle difference between the two scenes is striking. You see, Eurohorror (and especially Giallo, which"Exorcismo" is not) exists largely to show rich people being horrible and living empty lives. The women in these stories are usually creatures of pure hatred.

The scene with young Regan surprising the well-to-do party guests was truly disturbing, as we had an innocent child doing decidedly non-innocent things. The scene in "Exorcismo" when the not-as-young possessed girl makes a scene at the snobbish party, you're thinking, so what? She's only doing what women always do in European horror flicks.

At first I thought they just didn't have the budget or the know-how to make the girl look "possessed", so they just had her act horribly to the other characters, apparently unaware that all women in Eurohorror act that way anyway, so there's nothing shocking about seeing it here.

The movie does, eventually, make with some contact lenses and make-up, and give the possessed girl someone else's voice, but it's too late. There's just not enough going on in this movie to hold your attention for more than a moment. You're either thinking about how much better "The Exorcist" is than this movie, or you're not thinking about this movie at all.

Maybe I am biased, because I am a great fan of the late Spanish Horror/Cult icon Paul Naschy, but I do not understand how this film is so widely hated. Even my fellow Eurohorror enthusiasts seem to agree that "Exorcismo" (1975) is awful; while this is doubtlessly an incredibly cheesy, silly and trashy slice of Eurosleaze, and furthermore probably the most shameless and obvious of the many European rip-offs of "The Exorcist", I personally still found it to be entertaining enough. I'll be the last one to deny that it lacks suspense and creepiness or that the plot is illogical and stupid, or that the film overall could have used a lot more gore and exploitative elements, and that it has some lengthy parts; personally, I still didn't get bored.

After a car accident, the pretty young Leila (Maria Perschy) changes her behavior drastically. When her brother approaches Father Dunning (Paul Naschy) for help, telling him that it is the bad influence of his sister's boyfriend that has changed her behavior, the priest does not believe him at first. When a person close to Leila turns up dead with the head twisted by 180 degrees, things are getting suspicious...

As mentioned above, the film is probably the most shamelessly obvious rip-off of "The Exorcist" there is, so there is no need to discuss how the plot line lacks originality. There are many elements in this film which may be seen as crappy by some, and as amusing by others. I tend to the second category. The characters are eccentric and their actions often make little to no sense. A Woman who is in her 30s has a son who is in his 30s. Leila's brother and her boyfriend both look extremely weird; the latter lives in a room with silly-looking masks hanging down from strings attached to the ceiling and cupboards on which quotes like "All you need is to f***" are painted. The investigating police-officer is a superstitious freak who thinks the fact that a murder victim was drugged at the time of death is proof that the crime was a ritual murder. The role of a priest is probably not the first one that one might think of as fitting for Paul Naschy, but it actually fits him kinda well (though I tend to like the guy in any role he plays). Naschy is, of course, the main reason to watch this film. Furthermore, there is a lot of stylish sleaze and (as usual for Naschy flicks) tons of gratuitous female nudity. The female cast members are nice to look at: Lovely Grace Mills plays the possessed girl; her mother is played by Maria Perschy, who had previously worked with Naschy in "El Jorobado de la Morgue" ("The Hunchback of the Morgue", 1973) which is probably my personal favorite Naschy-flick, and "Los Ojos Azules de la Muñeca Rota" ("Blue Eyes of a Broken Doll", also 1973), which is also very good. The female cast furthermore includes María Kosty, whose face (as well as her body) is known for her roles in a variety of Spanish Horror and Exploitation features. Everybody keeps complaining about how awful the makeup in this film is, but I actually found it to be decent.

Overall, I can fully understand anyone who calls this film pure crap. It is, without a doubt, cheap and incredibly silly trash; but, personally I still found it entertaining and even enjoyable. This sure isn't for everyone, and apparently not even for all fellow Naschy fans. However, elements such as possession, gratuitous female nudity, satanic orgies, amusing cheesiness and Paul Naschy as a priest are enough to make a film entertaining in my book. 5/10