Recommended to see this one after one has screened Rosalba Neri in Lady Frankenstein and Slaughter Hotel, so one gets a sense of what a standout she remains in such a paltry production. Italian horror seemed obsessed with jazzy mod bare-midriffed bellbottomed Italian gals peeking into musty old Gothic castles lorded over by dirty old men (The Devil's Wedding Night, The Playgirls and the Vampire, Tomb of Torture, The Bloody Pit of Horror), and as in so many of those movies Neri finds she looks exactly like a former countess in a Cormanesque style portrait. But then the movie flashes back and spends the whole movie in the flashback, making it almost a quaint historical drama. Much of the telling of the story is beyond tedious, all but unwatchable, Neri steals Hans from another local girl, but it gets interesting again when a demon gets a glimpse at Neri's wedding dress, violating a taboo that results in an evil spell being cast upon her. She has to go see a witch who tells her to go pray to the moon goddess Selene on hanged man hill in the company of two virgins for intercession, but before she can complete the lunar cleansing of her gown the virgins get scared and run off, only to be abducted by cavedwelling Neanderthal rapists who force them into a nude orgy. This leaves Neri catatonic throughout her wedding and reception dinner, and she even (as in Lady Frankenstein) commits another atrocity in bed, running off to be with Satan, rolling under an altar with him in the (pretty PG-rated) nude, mainly shot to show off her remarkable backside, shoulders on down. Satan attempts to be dashing, I know its an urban legend but it never works. If you can adjust your TV set to the idea that these low-budget Gothic tales were told in the stilted manner of dramatizations in documentaries like you would see on the History channel today, and not through real theatrical acting, then the fact that the movie appears to be based on authentic Euro folklore and is not just another teens getting slashed black box makes it an interesting document of the kind of haunted ideas Italian horror was toying with back then. If you're not interested in Neri or folklore, pass on by.
Review of The Devil's Lover
