La Maison de l'exorcisme

This is the page for "House of Exorcism", but most people have confused this film with the Mario Bava masterpiece, "Lisa & the Devil", which explains the ridiculously high rating for this, "House of exorcism." When "Lisa & the Devil" was shown at film festivals in the early 70's, it was a critical success. Audiences responded well to that gorgeous, Gothic horror film. Unfortunately it was a bit ahead of it's time, and was considered too unusual, and not commercial enough for mass consumption. No distributor would buy it. So producer Alfredo Leone decided to edit 'Lisa', seemingly with a chainsaw, by removing just about half of the original film, and adding new scenes, which he filmed two years after the original product! It is important to note that Bava had little to do with these new, hideous additions, so technically "House of Exorcism" is not a Bava film. The original product is a slow, dreamy, classy production. A few minutes into the film, the viewer is jarred out of this dream world, as suddenly we see Lisa, (two years older, and with a very different haircut), begin to writhe on the ground, making guttural sounds and croaking epitaphs like "suck my co@k", etc. Subtle, huh? And the film continues like this, jumping back and forth between a beautiful, visual film, and a grade Z "Exorcist" rip-off. Leone was trying to incorporate these shock scenes, while keeping some semblance of a story intact. He failed miserably. When the choice was made to basically destroy "Lisa and the devil", Bava himself refused, saying that his film was too beautiful to cut. He was right, and it must have been quite sad for this artist to see all his work destroyed and flushed down the toilet. It was many years before the original "Lisa and the Devil" was seen again, re-surfacing on late night television. I had seen "lisa" long before i saw this new version, and it was downright disturbing to witness one of my favorite films "vandalised" in this way. Worth seeing only for curiosity sake. Otherwise avoid this insidious disaster like the plague.

Lisa and the Devil was a film directed by Mario Bava, it had a limited cinema release in 1973 but was soon withdrawn by producer Alfredo Leone as he did not know how to market this strange, lyrical film. It sat on the shelf for a couple of years with no distributer interested in picking it up, so Leone decided to attempt to make some money back on his investment. Two years later he returned with one of the participants from the first film, Elke Sommer - along with Robert Alda and Carmen Silva, neither of whom appeared in Lisa and the Devil at all - and, with Bava's assistance, directed a batch of new, completely unrelated material. He then merged these new scenes in with parts from the original film. The resultant movie became known as The House of Exorcism. Like some other Italian films from the time like L'anticristo it clearly was designed to cash in on the success of The Exorcist, as it is basically a rip off of this film in many ways. Lisa and the Devil, on the other hand, had nothing to do with demonic possession and its story is completely unrelated.

The biggest single problem with The House of Exorcism is that if you are already familiar with Lisa and the Devil it's very difficult disassociating the scenes from that movie from their original intent. It simply just makes you want to see them again in their original context. When I watch The House of Exorcism, it's the new bits that interest me; the stuff from Lisa is just simply distracting. The contrast in tone between the two sections of film is massive, where the stuff from Lisa is beautiful and fairly subtle; House of Exorcism is relentlessly coarse and goes for shock value. It's pretty much an exploitation movie and the sequences from Lisa and the Devil do not fit into its tone and story-line well at all. In fairness, it may work a lot better - maybe even quite well - if you have never seen the original film but I suspect most people going into this already have and that's essentially the problem.

The new material is set mainly in a hospital where Lisa (Elke Sommer) is confined after being possessed by the Devil. A priest (Robert Alda) tries to exorcise her. The new scenes are typified by Sommer barking out obscenities at Alda. There's lots of green vomit, a vision of a beautiful naked woman and...frogs. The new stuff's not that bad really and would have no doubt have made an entertaining schlockfest if it had constituted the full movie. But, as it is, the majority of the run-time is made up of re-used material from Lisa and the Devil, which is distracting and useless if you have seen the original already. Nowadays, with the original film readily available, The House of Exorcism has become no more than a curiosity piece. Fun to watch for the added possession material but as a whole it doesn't work anymore.

THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM is what happened when the original, truly surreal horror film from Director Mario Bava, LISA AND THE DEVIL failed to turn a big profit. It was reworked, with extra scenes added / insinuated into the film. These scenes, starring Robert Alda as Father Michael, are about Lisa's (Elke Sommer) being possessed by a demon.

Of course, this had nothing whatsoever to do with the original movie, so new scenes of Lisa spouting obscenities, going bug-eyed, foaming at the mouth, spewing the obligatory green stuff, and contorting her body are inter-cut with the genuine footage from Bava's classic. The result is... bizarre.

Fans of LATD will watch agog, as their beloved film is edited, annihilated, and continually interrupted by what amounts to an unintentional parody of THE EXORCIST. This was obviously due to the huge popularity of that movie in the early 1970's. It's sort of like what might have happened if someone had decided to turn Hitchcock's PSYCHO into a comedy about motel management!

THE BURNING QUESTION: How was Ms. Sommer lured into trashing her own film, and making such a spectacle of herself in the process?...

This is an Italian/Spanish co-production , resulting to be an Exorcist's rip-off in which our starring suffers a demonic entity within her , and paced in two different time lines by means of a disconcerting mix here and there . Lisa Reiner (Elke Sommer) is a young woman travelling as a tourist in the Spanish old city named Toledo . Lisa faints on the street and carried at a Hospital , there she shows astonishing signs to be really possessed , so a priest , Father Michael (Robert Alda) , is brought in to perform an exorcism . However, he first attempts to investigate how she became possessed by the devil in the first place . It is blended with the horrific experiences when she's lost and taken by a marriage (Sylva Koscina and Eduardo Fajardo) and their chauffeur (Gabriele Tinti) . When the car is broken down , they find shelter into a luxurious mansion where inhabits a twisted Spanish aristocratic family formed by strange characters , a countess (Alida Valli) , his son (Alessio Orano) and the butler (Telly Savalas) . Every Corner of the Soul is Lost to the Icy Clutch of the Supernatural! Her body helpless! Her soul no longer her own! Warning ! The theater management cannot be held responsible for persons who faint or go berserk while viewing the House of Exorcism ! First, there was "The Exorcist". Then came "The Omen". And now, a sensational new film that dares to go one step beyond... "THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM".

There is a peculiar version from ¨Bava's Lisa and the Devil¨ called ¨House of Exorcism¨ for the American market adding some images about a priest -Robert Alda- , rip off from ¨The exorcist¨ , while making spells , enchantment , exorcisms which result to be embarrassment and absurd . A Sui Generis mingling in which American tourist Lisa is taken to hospital and subsequently she shows disturbing signs of demonic possession, along the way, a troubled priest attempts to exorcise her soul who has been possessed by the Devil after witnessing supernatural events at a Spanish villa where lives a weird family with dark secrets . Despite the fact that her personality has now completely blended together with devil possession , the film fais to deliver interest enough and turning to be embarrasing and really ridiculous.

This is a re-edit of Lisa e il diavolo made by producer Alfred Leone who financed various sub-genres and exploitation movies such as : Fire in the Flesh , Gold of the Amazon Women, Rabid Dogs , How Many Times... That Night , The Torture Chamber of Baron Blood , Holiday Hookers and Joko . While the original film was directed by Mario Bava and belongs to Italian horror genre . Mario Bava along Riccardo Freda (Secret of Dr Hitchcock , Vampires , The spectre) and subsequently Dario Argento (Deep red , Suspira , Inferno) are the fundamental creators of Latin terror genre . Mario Bava directed excellent horror movies (Mask of demon , Black Sunday , Black lace , Planet of vampires) and mediocre (Baron of blood , Bay of Blood , Shock) horror films . These movies are characterized by slick edition , usual zooms , special overblown use of colour in a glimmer red blood and utilization of shock-images . The film gets an attractive and enjoyable casting , a gorgeous Elke Sommer (The prize) , an enticing Sylva Koscina (Miguel Strogoff) , a veteran Alida Valli (The Paradine trial) and a sympathetic devil with lollipop included played by Telly Savalas (Kojak) . Magnificent and colorful cinematography by Cecilio Paniagua with intervention by the same Bava like is habitual in all his movies , as he's usually cameraman . The musical background was composed by Joaquin Rodrigo with his famous 'Concert of Aranjuez' and the score by Carlo Savina . The motion picture will appeal to Exorcist copycats fans .

Mario Bava is my personal favorite director of all times. And not just via photo-finish, but literally with miles ahead of my second favorite director, which is Lucio Fulci. Back when I started to develop an interest for Bava's work, in 2004 or so, I vividly remember that "Lisa and the Devil" was difficult to find, while "The House of Exorcism" was the more easily available version for purchase. Via an obscure French label, however, I found Bava's original masterpiece (in an awesome boxset together with "Baron Blood" and "Hatchet for the Honeymoon"), so I never bothered to search for the much hacked-up version that the great Bava dissociated himself from.

Now, since it's more than 15 years later and time for an urgent re-watch, I figured to give "The House of Exorcism" a shot. The story behind both film versions is actually a very sad and tragic one, especially if you're an avid admirer of Italy's most visionary director. With "Lisa and the Devil", Mario Bava finally received complete freedom - artistically as well as financially - to make the film he wanted to make, but for some incomprehensible reason, the critics and audiences weren't enthusiast. Shame, because the film truly remains a superbly atmospheric and fascinating piece of gothic horror. Producer, and former friend, Alfredo Leone understandably wanted to recuperate a part of his unsuccessful investment, and since "The Exorcist" rip-offs were trending massively at the time, Leone directed some additional footage and re-released the film. Suddenly, as a result of her encounters in the strange mansion, Lisa is possessed with the devil (who may or not be Telly Savalas in the flesh) and Robert Alda joins the cast as the priest charged with the exorcism.

"The House of Exorcism" is a rehash, pure and simple. The original footage of "Lisa and the Devil" is still brilliant, but less powerful and a lot more incoherent. The additional footage represents everything what Bava despises: unoriginal plot, stolen ideas, gratuitous nudity and unnecessary profanity. A clash of styles is what this is.