Riti, magie nere e segrete orge nel Trecento...

If the box indicated non stop naked female sacrifice, who would believe it? Well, there is, from the opening credits to the closing title. In between such scenes there is the odd bit of vampirism, some Italian style Gothic horror, psychedelic moments with coloured lights and mini skirts and even time for comedic moments, not forgetting the non consensual threesome and other odd sexual antics. Total nonsense of course and seemingly two or more films stuck together judging by the jumps from misty castles to crystal clear soft core. But, who cares? It looks good most of the time, at no moment does everyone have their clothes on and the soundtrack although appalling is varied. Not much horror but some stunning images, some great faces, and lots of lovely Italian girls happy to show that they are lovely all over.

This movie is best known as 'The Reincarnation Of Isabel', though I watched it as 'Black Magic Rites'. It's also sometimes titled 'The Ghastly Orgies Of Count Dracula'. Anyway, whatever you call it this is one freaky movie! This kind of quasi-psychedelic Eurohorror is I admit an acquired taste, but as I'm already a big fan of this kind of thing I find it hard to be objective about it. Despite (or maybe because of!) an impossible to follow plot, plenty of lousy acting and any excuse whatsoever to get the babes topless this is one of the weirdest and most entertaining movies of this type I've ever seen! Rita Calderoni from 'Nude For Satan' co-stars with Mickey Hargitay, the former bodybuilder and husband of Jayne Mansfield, who appeared in 'The Bloody Pit Of Horror' (by the way, if you're curious you can see Arnie play Hargitay in 'The Jayne Mansfield Story'). If you've seen 'Nude For Satan', imagine it was re-edited by someone tripping on acid and you'll have some idea of what '...Isabel' is like! If I resort to cliches and say you have to see it to believe it, it's because it's true... The plot... well, who knows what the plot is about! Some guys dressed up like Satanic superheros are sacrificing virgins in an attempt to resurrect their long dead leader, the witch (or was that vampire?) Isabella, who was burned at the stake by angry villagers hundreds of years before. I think. Oh, and Dracula's in there somewhere but I can't quite recall why. There are lots of flash backs and just about everybody plays two roles, so it's quite difficult to work out what the hell is going on most of the time! But you know what? It doesn't matter. I loved every minute of it.

Renato Polselli's "Riti, Magie Nere e Segrete Orge Nel Trecento..." aka. Rites, Black Magic and Secret Orgies in the Fourteenth Century aka. "The Reincarnation of Isabel" (1973) is a clear case of style over substance that might well appeal to my fellow fans of bizarre Italian Horror / Exploitation productions whereas others are probably better advised to skip it. Polselli is probably best known for his 1972 Giallo "Delirio Caldo", whereas this film remains relatively obscure. This is understandable, since the weirdness, confusion and lack of logic presented in "The Reincarnation of Isabel" simply cannot appeal to everybody. Nonetheless, this film is recommendable to my fellow Italo-Horror buffs as a particularly bizarre and unusual production.

The plot centers around a witch burning in the 14th century, when Isabel (played by the stunning Rita Calderoni) is accused of witchcraft and burned; centuries later, people who seem to be (reincarnations of?) the accusers and the accused gather at a party in an old castle, and mysterious events begin to occur... or something.

The films wonderful visual style and elegant presentation of sleaze almost make it forgivable that the plot is utterly confusing and lacking any structure whatsoever. Visually, Polselli's film ranks only slightly below the works of masters such as Mario Bava and Antonio Margheriti - and this is a comparison I do not make frivolously. The cinematography is gorgeous, as are the ravishing actresses (Rita Calderoni above all). The film is as wonderfully sleazy as it may be expected from an Italian Occult Horror / Exploitation flick from the early 70s, and neither does it scant with the gore. However, there is simply no coherent storyline, but simply a collection of elegant, sleazy sequences attached to one another by a thin yet confusing plot. Apart from Rita Calderoni and a bunch of other beauties in the female cast, the film stars bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay. Once the husband of Jayne Mansfield, Hargitay spent most of his acting career in Italian Cult productions, including director Polselli's own "Delirio Caldo", "La Figlia Di Frankenstein" ("Lady Frankenstein", 1971) and the unintentionally hilarious "Il Boia Scarlatto" ("The Crimson Executionner", 1964).

"The Reincarnation of Isabel" is, simply put, weird, weird, WEIRD, and while some people (myself included) will have a great time watching it, others will roll their eyes. Personally, I enjoyed the film; however, the film's plotlessness manifested in my drink consumption while watching it - when the film began, I opened a beer which I thought was the only one I'd drink that night, but once the film was over I was drinking my fifth.

Well you sure can't fault director Renato Polselli for not trying to entertain us that's for sure. The Reincarnation of Isabel like his deranged giallo Delirium before it is a non-stop barrage of sleazy thrills and gore. Polselli was certainly not a director who could be accused of being understated. His films are deranged and borderline incomprehensible, and full to the brim with naked women. He was clearly an unashamed exploitation film-maker who just got down to it and served up the goods with no consideration whatsoever to good taste and decency. But you know what? His movies do have a definite style – albeit a pretty haphazard one. The Reincarnation of Isabel is a perfect example. It's about a group of vampires who keep the body of a witch in the basement of a castle, awaiting a chance to resurrect her with the blood of several virgins. Cue the arrival of a party of knuckle-heads with the requisite gaggle of – deeply unconvincing – virgins.

I suppose it's a rip off of Mario Bava's Black Sunday in a way. Not that you'll probably notice as other than the witch idea it's a pure sleaze-fest with some gory violence chucked in for good measure. Every woman who appears in it gets naked and is terrorised at some point. Its sexist stuff of the first order naturally, although not quite as misogynistic as Delirium. The story sort of makes sense some of the time but you'll be forgiven for wondering what's going on a lot of the rest of the time. Polselli's haphazard style is the reason for this, as scenes are edited together bizarrely and characters act in ways that can only be described as insane. The film stars the always entertaining Mickey Hargitay and Rita Calderoni, both of who appear in Delirium along with most of the other cast members from that film. I was also astonished at the appalling haircuts sported by most of the girls – in virtually every other Italian production from the time the women all look like they have been groomed by super-chic stylists; the chicks here look more like they have been dragged through a hedge. But what the hell, they all get naked right? Anyway, the soundtrack is pretty good - quite moody and at times psychedelic, while the camera work is sometimes inventive and the dungeon set is admittedly pretty funky.

Overall, it's a very commendable example of Euro-Trash. Senseless? Yes. Gratuitous? Of course. Laughable? At times. Entertaining? Oh yeah.

A group of people are having a party in a castle one of them (Mickey Hargitay) has just bought. The castle is haunted by the malignant presence of a witch who was burned 500 years earlier and who, not surprisingly, looks just like one of the guests (Rita Calderoni). Yet another rip-off of Mario Bava's "Black Sunday"?--of course, but this movie is much, much more than that. All the male guests are either reincarnations of the earlier historical figures or vampires who have been living for centuries waiting for the opportunity to reincarnate the witch, Isabel. The women meanwhile are all virgins because, not only are virgins necessary for the ceremony, but as one character eloquently puts it, "Vampires need blood uncontaminated by human semen." (This leads one dumb girl in a particularly hilarious scene to give up her virginity to her nymphomaniac friend and a fat, ugly guy with a severe facial twitch).

Obviously, the main appeal of this movie is sex and nudity, but anyone watching it SOLELY for that purpose might be a little frustrated as this a Renato Polselli film, a man whose directorial style can best be described as completely deranged. While there are acres of flesh on display here, Polselli often seems more interested in the bizarro camera angles, the staccato editing sequences, and the pulse-pounding score than he is in lingering on the action like some of his hack contemporaries (or more modern-day "erotic" filmmakers) would have done. All the actors and actresses from Polselli's more famous film "Delerio Caldo" show up again here, and while the latter are even more naked than they were in "Delerio Caldo", some of them turn out to be pretty untalented as thespians(and Polselli doesn't have the good sense to kill them off quickly like he did in the other film). Meanwhile, the stronger actors like Hargitay, Calderoni, and Krysta Barrymore are pretty much wasted in the incomprehensible chaos the film quickly descends into.

Regardless of whether you like this film or not, however, I GUARANTEE you'll never see anything else like it.