Byleth: The Demon of Incest

A rather slight but beguiling film that defies categorisation. It doesn't have much truck with a coherent narrative flow either but then it is the malformed or only partly successfully realised films that so often seem to capture the attention of the more jaded cinema viewer. Incest is, I guess, the big ingredient here and the reason why the film has slipped out of availability, but it is linked up with demonic possession too. Oh and rather a lot of naked flesh and erotic goings on. These scenes are well shot and the girls all seem attractive, in fact they also look rather similar to each other, intentionally, I assume, and all but one seems to have red hair. Indeed the outdoor scenes are also attractive and so even when the 'plot' is coming a little unstuck, there is always something beautiful or strange to look at. Decidedly odd at times, this is that little bit different and if there is little blood in the killings we certainly get startling facial close-ups and giallo like wide eyed deaths.

This strange cult oddity has been all but forgotten since its release in 1972, and I'm not really surprised at that - as while it certainly is a film with some merit, it's also really bizarre and I have no idea who the target audience might be. The name of the title is a demon, who apparently also happens to be the king of hell and who can curse a man to live in incest. Lionello is a man who has been punished by the demon and thus lusts after his own sister; which is not good news for her husband Giordano. If I had to liken this film to other films I've seen, I'd put it in with the likes of Valerie and Her Weekend of Wonders and The Reincarnation of Isabel as all these films are low on plots but high on weird goings on that don't always make a great deal of sense. This film does not benefit from a constantly intriguing narrative but there is usually just about enough going on to ensure that the film doesn't become boring. Director Leopoldo Savona creates a good style for the film and it does look very nice indeed. The film benefits from a handful of beautiful women who don't seem to mind taking their clothes off, which is also nice and care is taken with the locations also. It soon becomes apparent that the plot is not really all that important; but it is at least worthwhile and the script does bother to tie things up at the end. Overall, this is a decent if strange watch and while I wouldn't recommend anyone goes out of their way to find it; it is at least worth seeing.

"Byleth - Il Demone Dell'Incesto" (1972) is an odd Italian flick that isn't very widely known; while this weird little flick is certainly no highlight of Italian 70s Horror, however, it is definitely a beautifully made film that most of my fellow Italo-Horror buffs should enjoy. "Byleth" is an overall very weird little film, with a somewhat confused storyline which doesn't make a lot of sense. The film makes up for what it lacks in continuity, however, with a very beautiful visual style and intense Gothic atmosphere, a great score, a ravishing female cast (and ravishing female nudity) and a pleasantly bizarre mood. As the title implies, the film has to do with incest, and with an eponymous demon; not wishing to spoil anything, I will not continue with a plot description - but even if I did wish to write a synopsis of the storyline, it would probably take me a long time to do so, as it is so very bizarre and, to put it mildly, doesn't always make perfect sense.

"Byleth" is not the sleazefest one might expect from an Italian 70s film titled "The Demon of Incest". The film is erotic, of course, and features a lot of elegant and tasteful female nudity. The female cast members (all but one redheads) are all very beautiful, and, fortunately for us, none of them are afraid to bare it for the camera. However, apart from the obvious Incest topic, which is never that explicitly depicted, this one's sleaze factor is not far above average for Italian 70s exploitation standards.

Set in 19th century Italy, "Byleth" is a nice blend of atmospheric Gothic Horror and occultism and tasteful eroticism, which also includes some Giallo-elements. Director Leopoldo Savona isn't very renowned, but although this is his only Horror film he definitely succeeded in creating a nice mood here. Regular leading man Mark Damon, who is maybe best known to Horror fans for his roles in Roger Corman's "House of Usher" (1960, starring Vincent Price) and Mario Bava's "I Tre Volti Della Paura" (aka. "Black Sabbath", 1963), fits well in his role here, as a young Duke with a somewhat exaggerated affection to his sister (played by Claudia Gravy). But who could blame him? She's hot! The female cast members are the most ravishing sight of this generally beautifully looking film. "Byleth" is shot in very nice locations, with great set-pieces and accentuated by a truly wonderful score. With such a feast for the eyes, a somewhat lacking plot becomes secondary. Apart from its beauty, the film has some moments that are genuinely creepy, though it never actually becomes scary. Overall, this is certainly a 'style over substance' film, but warmly recommended to my fellow Italian Horror buffs, especially to those who appreciate atmosphere and beauty in a film. 6.5/10

Aug 21

I have just got to see Byleth for only the 2nd time, a few years after the first viewing and i was pleasantly surprised how much i enjoyed it.

Italian gothic type horror starring Mark Damon and Claudia Gravy, well worth finding out.

I was slightly disappointed with the abrupt ending and a couple of times there appeared to be little flashback scenes will no explanation as to why and who the women were supposed to be.

On the whole pretty decent.

7.5 out of 10.

The horror movie "Byleth: Demon of Incest" (1972) is a very strange horror movie and I'm not even sure if it's a horror film at all, this movie has absolutely no horror atmosphere but it has a very great atmosphere of let's call it... Italian... love series... WHAT!

Yes, I know what you're thinking, I'm talking about an Italian love series with an incestuous theme, okay, that's cool, but I really don't know how to describe it, it's a really specific horror movie, I've never seen a similar horror movie in my life, in which 80% of the scenes are nude scenes. I really don't know how to approach it, because it is not a horror movie at all, even though it has a demon motif - an incestuous demon, i.e. The titular Byleth. I don't know, the characters are, let's say, interesting, the main character is married and happy, her brother pretends to be happy but is jealous all the time and watches his sister during sexual intercourse with her husband and feels jealous(?)

We also have her husband Giordano, who is a very interesting character who wants to approach his brother-in-law in a positive way, looking for common interests and so on Well, it's clear that it won't work out, because his (xD) brother-in-law is not his brother-in-law is interested in his wife, ie. His sister Oh boy, but it's really a horror movie after all, because there's a motif of dead people, women with specific marks on their necks woven in, and it's an interesting motif and in part strangely shown, because it's very easy to guess who kills these women at the very beginning of this film.

But the film pretends that you probably don't know yet, you haven't guessed, not when it comes to special effects, remember this is a horror film from the 70's, and I've seen several hundred horror films from the 70's and it's very poorly done, especially since many of the scenes outside are as if the film was damaged, several scenes seem as if they were unfinished, or they were cut out and not the next one, what was in this scene for example, we have the protagonist riding a horse, looking at a building, there is a shot of this building, suddenly there is a cut and we have this protagonist hiding in a closet because he heard something, of course we assume that he heard something, because this part was also cut, I do not know why for a while I thought I had a faulty version, but it turned out that not everywhere, so it is not very good.

The music in this film is typical romantic music for such Italian films, absolutely not for horror films, although in maybe two moments, i.e. In the murder scenes and in the final scene, this music changes a bit to a more horror tone. It's very strange and peculiar, because you have to get through a lot of scenes with guests. There are a lot of close-up scenes and a lot of buttocks scenes, but somewhere in between these strange things is this horror film, which is very unbudgeted, very poorly shot and very al.... very weak and incomprehensible to me ending, so only watch it if you are mentally able to endure to the end and consider it any kind of horror movie.