"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"
--from Mark Twain's, "Number 44: the Mysterious Stranger"
This is often listed as Mario Bava's best-film, and it's pretty good. There is a cosmological-horror here that mirrors Lovecraft, and predates a similar-approach that Lucio Fulci would employ--a kind of ubiquitous-horror that has consumed everything. A place of no-escape. If this sounds like a Michele Soavi film, you're correct! I think Cemetery Man/Dellamore Dellamorte owes a great-debt to this film, as well as a few others from Bava's body-of-work. If you've ever had a feeling that dream-reality is more concrete than our own, this one is for you. The subconscious runs-riot in most of Bava's films, and his producer (Alfred Leone) let him do whatever he wanted here. The results are impressive, though the film suffers from a tedious middle. Alas, when it was screened at Cannes in 1973, nobody was offering much for a distribution-deal, so Leone had Bava shoot additions that would remake Lisa & the Devil into "House of Exorcism". The stories that Bava didn't shoot any of the retakes and additional-footage are untrue, he did. 1975 rolled-around, and House of Exorcism got a good distro-deal, and is cited as one of the most-successful Exorcist-ripoffs.
But, the original-cut by Bava somehow survived in TV-syndication copies, and was relocated in the 1980s. Finally, in the 1990s, Anchor Bay released VHS-versions of both-cuts to add-to-the-confusion. But, at-least Lisa & the Devil was now available to the fans, which was something even Bava was unable to enjoy in his lifetime. He died believing his cut had been lost, forgotten forever. Mario Bava thought all of his films would be forgotten. It's no-secret that without the championing of Tim Lucas (and even Joe Dante and Martin Scorsese), most of Bava's films would probably have met the fate he expected them to meet. So, there is a confusion about these two films, and they should be viewed as separate. Lisa & the Devil has nothing to do with possession or exorcism, only House of Exorcism does. It is a recut-version of Lisa, but it has its own merits (another story).
In the story, Lisa (Elke Sommer) is a tourist to a small Spanish village, one which she has become-convinced she has been-to before. She views a Medieval-painting on her entry into the town, which depicts the devil tormenting the souls of the damned. Throughout the film, she encounters a mysterious-man (played by Telly Savalas) who is often seen carrying a mannequin of a mustachioed-man in a suit. Other-times, the dummy seems alive, a real body made of flesh-and-blood, a nice touch of surrealist-cinema. Before-long, Lisa has made her way to an old Spanish Manse populated by a demented aristocratic-family with a butler named Landre who looks-familiar...it's Savalas again. Is Lisa wrong? Did she see the Butler controlling the family-members? Did she see the butler breaking the legs of a cadaver to fit it into a coffin (a nod to Lovecraft, one of Bava's favorite writers)? Has the family's sole male-heir a fixation (sexually) on the dead? Is this life death-itself? Is Lisa alive? What is this place? What is this life? By the end, you will know, and it will make you despair.
This is one creepy movie, one that will haunt you for days, maybe forever. In a way, it's the last, great Gothic horror-film. Very few movies say "death" this many times over, and Lisa & the Devil is a film about the loneliness of the human-condition. Conveying the hell that is solitude, it even has some echoes of Mark Twain's final-novel, "Number 44: The Mysterious Stranger" (written-from 1890 and 1910), where the main-character realizes he is a unitary-God, alone in the abyss. Everything in the story--all the characters, events--was part-of a dream conjured-up to hide this fact.
The best route for this film on DVD is to buy the double-feature that includes House of Exorcism. Sadly, Image didn't do a recut with Lisa & the Devil from the superior film-elements from House of Exorcism, it's a little weaker in image-quality. Why they would make House look-better is a mystery, but at least we have a full-cut of the film. There have been rumors that Anchor Bay is obtaining the rights to do fully-remastered versions of the Bava-catalog that Image has previously-held. If they do HD-transfers, that would be great, as most of the Image-versions have been from inferior-materials. Bava's films are best-appreciated fully-restored, or at least from good elements. We'll see.
--from Mark Twain's, "Number 44: the Mysterious Stranger"
This is often listed as Mario Bava's best-film, and it's pretty good. There is a cosmological-horror here that mirrors Lovecraft, and predates a similar-approach that Lucio Fulci would employ--a kind of ubiquitous-horror that has consumed everything. A place of no-escape. If this sounds like a Michele Soavi film, you're correct! I think Cemetery Man/Dellamore Dellamorte owes a great-debt to this film, as well as a few others from Bava's body-of-work. If you've ever had a feeling that dream-reality is more concrete than our own, this one is for you. The subconscious runs-riot in most of Bava's films, and his producer (Alfred Leone) let him do whatever he wanted here. The results are impressive, though the film suffers from a tedious middle. Alas, when it was screened at Cannes in 1973, nobody was offering much for a distribution-deal, so Leone had Bava shoot additions that would remake Lisa & the Devil into "House of Exorcism". The stories that Bava didn't shoot any of the retakes and additional-footage are untrue, he did. 1975 rolled-around, and House of Exorcism got a good distro-deal, and is cited as one of the most-successful Exorcist-ripoffs.
But, the original-cut by Bava somehow survived in TV-syndication copies, and was relocated in the 1980s. Finally, in the 1990s, Anchor Bay released VHS-versions of both-cuts to add-to-the-confusion. But, at-least Lisa & the Devil was now available to the fans, which was something even Bava was unable to enjoy in his lifetime. He died believing his cut had been lost, forgotten forever. Mario Bava thought all of his films would be forgotten. It's no-secret that without the championing of Tim Lucas (and even Joe Dante and Martin Scorsese), most of Bava's films would probably have met the fate he expected them to meet. So, there is a confusion about these two films, and they should be viewed as separate. Lisa & the Devil has nothing to do with possession or exorcism, only House of Exorcism does. It is a recut-version of Lisa, but it has its own merits (another story).
In the story, Lisa (Elke Sommer) is a tourist to a small Spanish village, one which she has become-convinced she has been-to before. She views a Medieval-painting on her entry into the town, which depicts the devil tormenting the souls of the damned. Throughout the film, she encounters a mysterious-man (played by Telly Savalas) who is often seen carrying a mannequin of a mustachioed-man in a suit. Other-times, the dummy seems alive, a real body made of flesh-and-blood, a nice touch of surrealist-cinema. Before-long, Lisa has made her way to an old Spanish Manse populated by a demented aristocratic-family with a butler named Landre who looks-familiar...it's Savalas again. Is Lisa wrong? Did she see the Butler controlling the family-members? Did she see the butler breaking the legs of a cadaver to fit it into a coffin (a nod to Lovecraft, one of Bava's favorite writers)? Has the family's sole male-heir a fixation (sexually) on the dead? Is this life death-itself? Is Lisa alive? What is this place? What is this life? By the end, you will know, and it will make you despair.
This is one creepy movie, one that will haunt you for days, maybe forever. In a way, it's the last, great Gothic horror-film. Very few movies say "death" this many times over, and Lisa & the Devil is a film about the loneliness of the human-condition. Conveying the hell that is solitude, it even has some echoes of Mark Twain's final-novel, "Number 44: The Mysterious Stranger" (written-from 1890 and 1910), where the main-character realizes he is a unitary-God, alone in the abyss. Everything in the story--all the characters, events--was part-of a dream conjured-up to hide this fact.
The best route for this film on DVD is to buy the double-feature that includes House of Exorcism. Sadly, Image didn't do a recut with Lisa & the Devil from the superior film-elements from House of Exorcism, it's a little weaker in image-quality. Why they would make House look-better is a mystery, but at least we have a full-cut of the film. There have been rumors that Anchor Bay is obtaining the rights to do fully-remastered versions of the Bava-catalog that Image has previously-held. If they do HD-transfers, that would be great, as most of the Image-versions have been from inferior-materials. Bava's films are best-appreciated fully-restored, or at least from good elements. We'll see.