Exorcisme

My wife bought me this by mistake! Some company called Boulevard entertainment had somehow mixed this up with another film called Exorcism (and American religious film or something), but when Lina Romay's pubic hair appeared within 0.001% of a second of the film starting, I thought "We're back in the land of Jess Franco!"

That's bad news for most of us, by the way. There is a small fraction of the populace that rather enjoys a Franco film, but if you've sat through any of his films you know what to expect here: Endless scenes, much nudity and little sex, plenty of misogyny, and zoom shots.

Truth be told, this is nowhere near as painful as Succubus or Oasis of the Zombies, but it's also nowhere near as funny as White Cannibal Queen or the Devil Hunter. It involves Franco himself as a crazy ex-priest running around Paris carving up women that are involved in some sort of half-arsed black mass ceremony, with his prize being Lina Romay, who, surprisingly, spends most of the film naked or tied up and naked.

That's your plot, and reading that back over I realised that I've made Exorcism sound a bit exciting, which it's not. "Crazy ex-priest running around Paris" doesn't sound right. How about 'slowly moping around Paris, usually hiding behind things, staring"? Instead of 'carving up women' I'll say 'very slowly tormenting women and gibbering on about how they've got the devil in them for endless minutes'? I'll stick by the 'half-arsed black mass' though. Plus there's an orgy scene which seems to involve nothing but naked people writhing around and not doing much (and this is the early seventies – all them naked bodies must have reeked!). Additionally, there's this old guy who has a hilarious blue rinse, so watch out for that.

I loved how, when the dust settled and the film was over, the police just got back into their car and drove off, leaving all the bodies/victims behind. Hurrah for realism! Also, hurrah for nepotism as Franco himself gets to run his gnarled hands over quite a few naked actresses!This film gets an extra point for the sadly departed Lina Romay, who is the only good thing about this film. Do they have pubes in heaven?

I've just noticed Jess has now gone off to the soft-core film in the sky too. Shame - I know I rag on most of his films but still, he'll be missed.

As much as I hate watching cut and dubbed versions of Euro horror movies I'll take any opportunity to watch a Jess Franco movie. So I haven't seen either the softcore or hardcore versions of this film but the butchered cut known as 'Demoniac'. Maybe anything I say about this version is worthless, but as it is it's far from Franco's best, yet still surprisingly watchable. Despite the lousy English dubbing I thought Franco's acting was more than adequate, in fact he easily gives the best performance in the picture. He plays Vogel, an intense and tortured defrocked priest who writes salacious stories for a racy magazine, the editor of which hangs with a swinging crowd who stage fake sadomasochistic performances for fun (shades of one of Franco's best 'Succubus', but don't get your hopes up). Vogel secretly witnesses a black mass, and not realizing it is fake, decides he must save the souls of the participants via exorcism, which in reality basically equates to murdering them. 'Demoniac' is presumably a lot less explicit than the other versions available. There is a fair bit of nudity including arguably the dullest orgy ever seen on screen. Franco's wife and frequent star Lina Romay is always a pleasure to look at, but if you want to see her at her best check out 'Female Vampire', the one where she kills via fellatio, remember? As I haven't seen the "real" version of this movie I can't honestly say whether it's good Franco or bad Franco, but if you're wanting to explore his work try and see 'Vampyros Lesbos', 'Eugenie De Sade', or 'Succubus' first.

There are reportedly at least three very different versions of "Exorcism" around. I am reporting here on Eurocine's original version as recently released by Anchor Bay.

Jess Franco surely is a gifted director. Although most of the few movies I know from his immense production are below average, they often include some ingenious scenes and a good soundtrack which largely saves the movie. Nevertheless, I start to get disappointed when the movie does not develop its potential because the director just didn't take the pain to think a little about constructing some tension and a climax.

This applies, e.g., to "Female Vampire" and to "Exorcism". The first part of the movie brings us to a strange world. People are visiting phony black masses featuring the slaughter of a pidgeon and sadomasochistic rituals in order to get sexually aroused. Jess Franco plays an ex-priest who writes S/M-stories for a magazine "based on true experience" stating that "you have to know evil in order to fight it". He is attracted to the lesbian S/M-performer Anna and on the other hand pursues the participators of the black masses with bloody and deadly exocirsm rituals. There are nice interiors which were shot in a beautifully decorated "day time hotel" near Paris.Unfortunately, after having introduced all this material, the movie gets completly stuck. Instead of developing, e.g., the character of the priest, his madness (as he did for example in "Jack the Ripper"), Franco just repeats the shots of black masses and exorcism over and over again or fills the movie with extended sex scenes. This leads utterly to boredom and the ending lacks any interest to justify the waiting.

As usual, Franco has trouble to keep his camera in focus and the editing is crude. Take for instance the ending. Franco brings Anna to his castle outside of Paris. Then, Anna phones somehow her friend to tell her that she is alright. A few seconds later, we see Franco back in his Paris appartment and then driving back to the castle (so that his pursuers have the chance to follow him). Although the timing might be possible, I found this unnecessarily confusing.

So the movie is just another unfulfilled promise by the director. It is without technical merits and doesn't deserve much attention.

My copy is titled Exorcism and is absolutely great. There's naked girls chained upside down getting whipped and covered in sacrificial blood and some demented ex-priest stabbing people with at least one scene of guts or a heart or something removed from what was probably a dead pig.

I think maybe this movie should be viewed as a comedy, its certainly believable that it was intended as such.

In Paris, the former priest Mathis Vogel (Jesus Franco) writes pornography for a magazine. When the deranged priest watches an erotic show based on a Black Mass, he believes that the cast and audience are possessed and he goes on a murder spree to exorcise the demons of his victims.

"L'Éventreur de Notre-Dame" is another Eurotrash by Jess Franco, who is also the lead actor. His trademark is present in every scene, with sexploitation, violence, nudity, bad acting and gore, but for fans of this genre it is funny to watch this trash. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Exorcista Diabólico" ("The Devilish Exorcist")