Il signor Diavolo

Superficial and discounted. Terrible acting, elementary history and meaning none. As a mysterious film there is no tension, as a horror film there is no terror. Alessandro Haber and Andrea Roncato make small cameos: Haber is fine but does not shine as usual; Roncato, compared to the protagonists, looks like an Oscar-winning actor. In a peasant context, in 1952, they still go around with oil lamps (ok), but they also have many vans and cars, even the father of the little protagonist. Completely unreal: they were very poor, at most they could afford a cart pulled by a mule. I am Italian and I know well the situation of the villages of those years, even a bicycle was considered expensive (see "Bicycle Thieves" by Vittorio De Sica, 1948). Luckily I didn't go to see it at the cinema: after 5 minutes I would have gone away cursing and asking for a refund. Garbage.

I watched this movie during spare time, hoping to see some "so bad it's good" stuff, knowing how terribly overrated everything shot by Avati is. In the beginning my hopes seemed to be fullfilled: terrible acting, awful scenes, didascalic photography.. however, with time the movie only gets more boring and unexplained, with some completely useless subplots like the "love story". Incredible how in 2019 a so called "maestro" can continue to get funds by italian ministry to make such awful and useless movies. Embarassing.

In this movie, it's just the beginning part that's scary. For the rest the plot is ridiculous, the special effects are ridiculous and even the aura of the film that should be scary is ridiculous.

Too many things going on in the movie.

Basically a kid kills another kid with extra teeth, church fomented it, another kid dies after being tripped by the extra teeth kid and dropping a host at mass (felt guilty about dropping the host - Priest stops mass because of it), kid with extra teeth tells kid that eventually kills him (and friend of dropping host kid) how to bring him back etc. Oh ya, the kid with extra teeth supposedly bit his baby sister to death in her crib. Not true per the Mother angry about her kid with teeth being murdered and a supporter of current Italian Gov and turns against them.

Superstition that kid with teeth byproduct of in essence bestiality involving a pig therefore must have been the Devil in rural religious superstitious Italy of the1950's.

Meanwhile, because the church involved DC Gov of the time wants it investigated (extra teeth kids Mother the reason), sends its Rep down that tries to figure out what in God's name happened - Mission Impossible per my 1st two paragraphs, gets way too involved and in the end I'm certain he wished he had stayed in Rome and pursued some nurse looking after his Father in a home (and what did that side story have anything to do with the core plot?).

Too busy and weird (the pig thing was deranged to me - ya, they killed it for eating the host). Not much horror. They call it Padano Gothic.

Shock for the sake of shock at times (the whole pig, host sideline story that comes with Mother Superior's involved).

Told you it was a busy movie.

I call it 6 stars for the effort and the investigator and kid murderer actors were decent as was kid with teeth. The rest more like filler if you ask me.

Great style and atmosphere, but disappointing ending. This is a recurring theme in Pupi Avati's work. This film is reminiscent of Arcane Sorcerer (1996) in which a protagonist goes to investigate strange happenings involving evil forces. There are similar castle/cathedral-like sets/locations. They both have underwhelming/disappointing endings.

Where Il Signor Diavolo really shines is the atmosphere and the look of the film. It has a gorgeous and gritty feel. It felt authentic. The acting was good all around. The subtitles were poor on the version I saw so that may be part of the problem.

However, the other part of the problem is the structure. This is a novel that was turned into a film about a man who spends half the film sitting down and reading a transcript of an interview that authorities conducted with a young boy who told them a story about why he killed a another boy he thought was the devil. Then, our protagonist has a series of conversations which lead into a rushed finale.

It's creepy. It's wonderful to look at. But it doesn't go anywhere interesting.