Michael Ledo
A woman stays overnight at the Devil's caste and dreams of Helga and her lover. They are Germans who speak Italian and like garlic. There are witches and spell casters and a guy in a red hood as Magda wants Helga's boyfriend Hans.The restoration was bad in a number of spots and good in other. The erotica is the sell element of the film, and that aspect doesn't exist in the beginning and is heavy loaded into one scene of F/F lovers during some rite. Plot wise the story leaves much to be desired too. Over priced.Guide: Sex and nudity
revrommer
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.
MARIO GAUCI
The heyday of the Italian Gothic Horror genre was the early-to-mid-1960s; even so, the style lingered on well into the next decade but the results were often far beneath what could be accomplished at its best. Naturally, this is one such example: actually, we start off here with a contemporary setting and the heroine ("Euro-Cult" favorite Rosalba Neri) dreams herself back at least two centuries – under the influence of an old mansion where, legend has it, the devil used to reside! An element these later efforts certainly took advantage of was the relaxation in censorship, except that then we tended to get copious nudity at the expense of plot (and even atmosphere): at one point, for instance, a couple of nubile girls are gang-raped and forced to copulate between themselves inside a cave, a sequence that has no bearing whatsoever on the central plot! For what it is worth, the narrative involves two girls (one is Neri and the other is played by a companion of hers in the modern 'bookends') who both love the same man; when he chooses Neri, the rival (herself pursued by another, played by Robert Woods) turns to a witch who puts a curse on the former. This results in Neri being seduced by a stranger (Edmund Purdom), losing her lover to him and getting burned at the stake for the latter's death
all on her wedding night and, surprise surprise, the interloper is eventually revealed to be Old Nick himself! While the lethargic pacing is decidedly characteristic of such fare, the inept handling is not and, in this case, makes the film a snooze-fest as opposed to the mood-piece its creators probably intended! When I first came across this one, I was intrigued by its description as "the greatest Rosalba Neri movie ever"; however, having checked it out for myself now, I regret to report that things could not be further removed from the truth!
Michael_Elliott
Lucifera: Demon Lover (1972) * 1/2 (out of 4) Italian horror has three women (led by cult favorite Rosalba Neri) going to stay at a house that is said to be the home of Satan. They talk the caretaker in letting them spend the night when the Neri character sees a portrait that takes her back in time several hundred years where the three women are now in their own battle with the Devil. Fans of MARK OF THE DEVIL or THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT will probably be tempted to try this out as will fans of Neri but both parties are going to be disappointed because the movie is pretty much dull from start to finish. The entire story doesn't make a bit of sense and to make matters worse is the fact that director Lombardo didn't have much experience behind the camera and this clearly shows with the incredibly slow pacing. It also doesn't help matters that we have several Ed Wood moments where it will be light outside but then they'll cut to the next scene where it's dark and then cut back to light. This happens at least during two different scenes taking place at different times. The plot doesn't make a bit of sense but for this type of film that's really not overly important as long as we get good stuff. That good stuff being either violence, sex, nudity or in the best case all three. This film doesn't offer any blood and has very little nudity. We do get a pretty fun orgy taking place in a castle and fans of Neri and her nude scenes will have to wait until the very end to get just a little peak. The performances are all rather bland but you really can't blame them as I'm sure they were all aware that this thing wasn't going to turn out too well. Satan has invaded Italian horror films countless times but this here isn't the best out there and should pretty much be avoided by everyone unless they just have to sit through even the bad ones (like myself).
AD
