Excellent horror film from Italian director Mario Bava made a big splash at the Caanes Film Festival, but was tragically released in U.S. with added "Exorcist"-style footage under the title "House of Exorcism."
Anchor Bay has blessed us with a new release of the film as it was originally intended—with the nude scenes that were inserted into the American version tagged at the end of the film—so you still get all the sleaze of "House of Exorcism" without infringing on Bava's original vision. The film is a borderline masterpiece. Sommer plays a woman who is separated from a tour party in Italy and finds herself at a mansion where Savalas happens to be the butler. She starts having an afair with the household's perverted son.
There are some gruesome murders, manikans and even necrophilia. The film has a dreamlike quality and you find out why when you witness the twist ending. The U.S. "House of Exorcism" version, which is still gathering dust on some video store shelves, is not worth witnessing. Find the Anchor Bay copy or don't watch it at all. ("House" does, however, have some nudity -- including topless scenes with Elke Sommer -- which were not featured in "Lisa and the Devil," so you pervs out there might want to check it out for that.) Beautiful, bizarre and daring, it's a must-see for any horror fan.
