The House of Exorcism (1976)

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Although one might understand producer Alfred Leone's concern at having bankrolled a film nobody wanted to distribute, i.e. Mario Bava's LISA AND THE DEVIL (1973) – one is more likely to empathize with the latter's unenviable plight of having to defile his own "masterpiece" by inserting lots of ludicrous (and ludicrously irrelevant) footage in the hopes of turning it into a marketable commodity (albeit shot by Leone himself and Bava's own son Lamberto and credited to one "Mickey Lion" on U.S. prints)! Diabolism in cinema had hit a peak with the artistic and commercial success of William Friedkin's THE EXORCIST (1973) and both Hollywood and European film-makers were quick to jump on the bandwagon: from Jesus Franco's EXORCISM and LORNA THE EXORCIST to Ovidio G. Assonitis' BEYOND THE DOOR (1974) to Alberto De Martino's THE ANTICHRIST (all 1974)! Due to the tenuous devilish connection in Bava's original version (but, then, Telly Savalas' inherently comic persona there simply makes no sense vis-a'-vis his would-be unholy influence on Lisa in the reworking!), the chance for Leone to add his own product to the mix must have seemed too good to pass by. Needless to say, this necessitated that additional scenes be shot featuring a demonically-possessed protagonist (which star Elke Sommer reportedly shot for free!), a cleric literally picked off the streets of Toledo who just happens to be adept at exorcism (a visibly distraught Robert Alda) and the resulting gravity-defying shenanigans at the hospital (witnessed by Leone's own daughter Kathy, whose role as Sommer's travelling companion was consequently enlarged). Apart from all this, a few erotic or violent sequences are far more graphically rendered in this version, while even Carlo Savina's previously lyrical music score has been punched up by ominously percussive beats over the opening credits… Even though I do not quite rank LISA in the top-tier of the director's works myself, the desecration done to it by this travesty is still too great to overlook or forgive: incidentally, I had twice previously watched it in English, but this latest viewing came by way of the Italian-language 'original' culled off "You Tube" and, for what it is worth, it does play better this way…meaning that the obligatory profanities spouted by Sommer at the befuddled Alda are even funnier now! To be fair to it, none of the various EXORCIST copycats that I have come across treated the possession theme with the requisite seriousness and spirituality, preferring to indulge in rotating heads, levitations and copious vomit-spewing. While, as already intimated, THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM does include some of these (Sommer even throws up live frogs!), its 'backstory' – that is, the footage pertaining to LISA AND THE DEVIL and which the leading lady insists has already happened and is happening again, whatever that is supposed to mean – has little bearing on Lisa's current condition…and how can she be strapped to a hospital bed while simultaneously living a nightmare at the villa?! For good measure, Alda is lamely shown – like Jason Miller's priest in the Friedkin film – to have issues with the Catholic faith that could jeopardize his 'mission' due to personal tragedy (cueing an entirely gratuitous full-frontal nude seduction by his conveniently much younger dead spouse!).Leone may have removed slow, uneventful passages from LISA (not that the substitutes were any good, and the change in tone between one setting and another is most jarring) but he also ruined a number of judicious edits: most notable are a cut from Alida Valli's face to an eerie fish sculpture that forms part of a fountain, and the dinner sequence in which Telly Savalas' own visage is reflected in the contents of a spilled wine bottle on the floor – now overlapping into a puddle of green vomit beside the hospital bed – only to return to this very point (highlighting Savalas' nervously apologetic reaction to his slip-up) at the next instalment of Lisa's 'recollections'! In the end, it is worth noting that, much as would again prove the case with Enzo G. Castellari's THE LAST SHARK (1981; deemed plagiaristic and refused distribution in the U.S. at the time of release) and JAWS III (1983), the climax of THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM would in return be ripped off by Hollywood for the no-less maligned (and, oddly enough, itself be subject to tinkering in the hope of salvaging it) EXORCIST II – THE HERETIC (1977)!

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 (1973) is an interesting patch work film. After the disappointing attendance figures for LISA AND THE DEVIL, Producer Alfredo Leone re-shot and incorporated new footage into LISA AND THE DEVIL making the movie into an Exorcist knockoff. The ploy worked and Leone made his money back plus a profit. HOUSE OF EXORCISM is about a Bavarian woman named Lisa who's possessed by a restless spirit. The things that the spirit does and says puts Pazul/Linda Blair to shame.The spirit has a very foul mouth and uses creative dialog to motivate the priest into helping her. The movie is nowhere near the classic as LISA AND THE DEVIL but it's quite entertaining. However, the two movies are very different and they don't match together very well. One of the better Exorcist wannabes.Highly recommended for camp value.

House of Exorcism (1972) is a film we noticed circulating the underground film circuit lately so we had to snag a copy for ourselves. This 93 minute tape actually bears a lot in common with The Exorcist and has many memorable moments. Telly Savalas plays a lollipop-sucking demon (seriously) who aids in trapping a group of people in a "house of evil." Incest, rape, murder and wax dummies seem to be the main focus of this film and there is actually extra footage added to our particular copy (mostly a house-cleansing nearest the end). All in all, this film was not that exciting. This film was originally released as "Lisa and the Devil," it was re-edited in 1975 and renamed to House of Exorcism with Robert Alda as a priest (and believe us, without those particular scenes, the movie would have sucked).