Inquisición

Inquisition (1976)

*** (out of 4)

Paul Naschy made his directorial debut with this WITCHFINDER GENERAL type film that adds in a ton a nudity, gore and all out sleaze. In the film Naschy plays a man who puts many to death as he finds them to be witches but things take a turn when he falls in love with a young woman (Daniela Giordano) without realizing she has a pact with Satan (also played by Naschy). After watching this film you'll be wishing that Mr. Naschy had directed some of his earlier horror pictures and especially those that didn't quite reach the high entertainment level. I was really shocked to see how wonderful his direction was here because he really nailed the atmosphere and setting and in the end he delivered a sleazy but oh so entertaining picture. By 1976 there had already been several films dealing with this subject. Some were classics (WITCHFINDER GENERAL) and others were just trash (MARK OF THE DEVIL). This film here takes the serious elements of that first film and mixes in the sleaze of the second one but it's really Naschy's direction that makes it work so well. You really do believe the period setting and this here helps you buy into the story even more. Even better is that the "love story" isn't just there to pad out the running time and instead the director makes you get involved with both characters. It helps that Naschy and Giordano work so well together as they two of them can bounce the flirtatious moments off one another as well as the more dramatic ones. Even the supporting players are quite good, although there's no question that the main focus are the two leads. Another major plus the film has working for it are the Satanic cult scenes. These are shot incredibly well and the visual look of them are excellent. The thick fog adds to their quality but the sets are all rather amazing and again, there's Naschy bringing it all together. The gore and violence level isn't stomach-turning but it is pretty thick including one scene where a chained up woman gets her ripped torn off! The nudity level is incredibly high as all the torture victims are always naked plus there are other scenes that appeared to have just been thrown in for the chance of more naked bodies. This includes one scene where four beauties are splashing around naked in a lake for no other reason than they're extremely hot. INQUISITION is certainly one of the better films of its type and deserves to be better known.

Following the success of "The Conqueror Worm", and the "Mark Of The Devil" films, Naschy steps up, and adds another "monster" to his resume, with "Inquisition".

'Tis a bad time in this part of the world. The tyrannical rulers, are draining the public, there is little sustenance for the poor, and witchcraft is blamed for many troubles. Naschy enters as the resident witch hunter, and is soon torturing confessions out of many locals. In the dubbed, American version, there is a surprising amount of nudity, and many of the local women cluster together, as the girl who Naschy fancies, sells her soul, to catch a glimpse of the face of the man who killed her lover. There is reasonable 70's gore, and nudity, but this is no "Mark Of The Devil", though it ends much the same. When they shave Naschy's head, and burn him at the stake, he looks uncannily like the final immolation of "the mole", in Jodorowsky's "El Topo", yet seems prescient of Brando, in "Apocalypse Now".

I believe this is available in English now, but the version I saw was a Spanish language one off a full-screen PAL tape I bought in Buenos Aires. Judging from the rampant nudity, graphic violence, and general depravity it wasn't cut at least. This is Spanish actor Paul Naschy's strangely belated directorial debut. It is another entry into the 1970's "witch-hunter" genre inspired by such films as Michael Reeve's "The Conqueror Worm", Ken Russell's "The Devils", and the godawful but very seminal German film "Mark of Devil". This was a rather extreme genre which allowed for a lot of exploitative scenes of beautiful naked women being tortured, but also permitted filmmakers to at least pretend to criticize the real historical abuses of the Catholic Church. The latter would be especially resonant in Spain where in very recent times the Church had been a big supporter of the repressive Franco regime.

This movie is every bit as depraved and exploitative as any of its British, Italian, or German models, but it was interesting in that its victim (played by Italian actress Daniela Giordano)actually DOES sell her soul to the Devil, but only in order to take a supernatural (and, of course decidedly sexual) revenge on the corrupt witchfinder/inquisitioner played by Paul Naschy. The injection of actual supernatural elements (which was a peculiar characteristic of both the Spanish and Mexican versions of these films)kind of muddies the moral waters (not to mention the perceived historical accuracy) quite a bit.

As always, Naschy makes an interesting protagonist. He has always been one of the few actors brave enough to play characters that are not only despicable but also often pretty pathetic (and he's never been afraid to kill his character off early if it serves the plot), but he always somehow gets the audience on his side, and this movie is no exception--you end feeling sorry for his corrupt and wrongheaded inquisitioner by the end.

One weakness of Naschy movies though has been his leading actresses. He always casts pretty women who are willing to do rampant nude scenes, but they are usually pretty obscure actresses and not always very talented (with the exception of Erica Blanc, Patty Shepherd, and maybe Helga Line). It's good to see that he has a strong co-lead here in Daniela Giordana, a gorgeous former Miss Italy who showed a lot of promise in the Mario Bava sex comedy "Four Times that Night" but was pretty much wasted after that in throwaway parts in second-rate Italian gialli. Good movie. Check it out

Inquisición was written by, directed and stars Paul Naschy. I would imagine that he was starting to get tired of starring in the often less than brilliant Spanish horror films that he made a lot of prior to 1976 and decided to make something a bit more serious; probably taking influence from Vincent Price in the excellent Witchfinder General, and this film is the result. While the film is of a higher quality in terms of acting and content than most of Naschy's filmography; it's also rather dull and unfortunately has nothing on the earlier Vincent Price film. The film takes on a period setting and, as the title suggests, focuses on the Spanish Inquisition. The Inquisition is out hunting witches; and Bernard de Fossey is leading the hunt. However, a local girl takes offence at him and his compatriots hunting down the local townsfolk and decides to take action by hooking up with Satan himself to make the leader of the Inquisition fall in love with her, and thus leaving the leader with a personal crisis to negotiate.

As mentioned, Paul Naschy takes the lead role; and as usual, he is one of the best things about the film. Naschy obviously enjoys playing the lead role in his own film (actually this is the first one he wrote and directed) and the role is somewhat different and more involving than his previous ones. One of my main problems with the film is that the style of it is very bland; Spanish horror is more famous for its stunning Gothic locales and this film is severely lacking in this area. The plot moves very slowly and there is little in the way of distractions from the lead character's plight; which in truth is not all that interesting. To the film's credit, it does feature some very good torture scenes, some of which are quite nasty; a nipple removal scene is a highlight in that respect. Naschy does take tentative steps to lift the film by showing us pictures of some of Satan's minions (apparently the Dark Lord has quite a hierarchy set up!) but not enough is made of it. Overall, this film might be of interest to Spanish horror or Naschy completists; but I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to track it down.

Paul Naschy's directorial debut amazingly emerged to be superior to most of his work for other film-makers. Thematically, it amalgamates WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968) with THE DEVILS (1971): Naschy is the appointed Inquisitor who falls under the spell of a local girl (Italian starlet Daniela Giordano from Mario Bava's atypical FOUR TIMES THAT NIGHT [1969] and who, in a recent interview for the "Stracult" TV program, singled out the Naschy film as her personal favorite!). He has her lover killed (intermittently depicted as in a Sergio Leone picture, with harmonica accompaniment intact!) – though, in an online review, it is stated that he was not responsible after all?! – but is eventually brought before the court himself for associating with a sorceress. In fact, Giordano has sold her soul to the Devil (seen in effectively grotesque make-up not unlike that of a villain from some contemporaneous anime[!] and, reportedly, played by the star himself) and deliberately given in to her leading man's advances in order to bring him down!! At one point, he is haunted by the vision of a scythe-wielding Death but, since she ends up sharing his fate, one supposes the girl is ultimately disillusioned by her twisted beliefs – while, ironically enough, Naschy acquires grace through martyrdom!

The period ambiance is splendidly evoked, there is discreet use of gore (notably a nipple torn off by a huge pair of pliers!) and a surprising amount of nudity (gratuitous perhaps but not really exploitative). Of course, the "Malleus Maleficarum" tome and the plague (which, again, it is stated elsewhere to be the handiwork of the Devil himself!) never seem to be too far away in this type of film. Still, Naschy's script offers reasonable subtext: his character's position is coveted by the second-in-command (who proceeds to gleefully supervise the Inquisitor's own subsequent trial), a local blind-man is constantly snitching on the usually-innocent townsfolk (though he takes inordinately long to report the real witch who schools the heroine in the Black Arts!) to the relevant authorities until he predictably gets his just desserts, while Giordano – for whom, with her true love gone, life has lost its meaning – gradually comes to realize the power of Darkness and willingly becomes its servant and vessel. Incidentally, I was under the impression that INQUISITION was one of two efforts about which the writer/director/star felt the proudest (the other being THE TRAVELER [1979], which followed this viewing in quick succession) as per "The Mark Of Naschy" website – but, having double-checked, it transpired that that film was the serial-killer thriller THE FRENCHMAN'S GARDEN (1978) which, however, seems to be rather hard to come by...