by Paul A. J. Lewis

Released in most European countries during 1974, William Friedkin’s The Exorcist resonated particularly in Catholic territories. Filmmakers in Italy and Spain, in particular, rushed to produce films about demonic, or diabolical, possession that mimicked the themes of Friedkin’s picture. However, these European imitators of one of Hollywood’s most famous horror films gained added localised relevance through their exploration of contemporary anxieties about the radicalisation of young people (in the context of the Years of Lead, specifically) and Pope Paul VI’s 1972 assertion that doubt was causing people to “trust the first pagan prophet who speaks to us in some newspaper.”

Some of these Eurohorror films about demonic possession have acquired cult status amongst Anglophonic fans of Eurocult cinema and are readily available on digital home video formats, including Lucio Fulci’s Manhattan Baby (1982), Ovidio Assonitis’ Chi sei? (Beyond the Door, 1974), and Alberto De Martino’s L’anticristo (The Antichrist, 1974). Many others, however, have achieved obscurity and, for a variety of reasons, have been unavailable on home video since the VHS era.

The following four films offer a good place to start for any Eurocult film fan who is interested in exploring this short-lived but quite fascinating subgenre.

Un urlo dalle tenebre (Cries and Shadows, Elo Pannacciò 1975)

Known by a confusing plethora of titles—including Naked Exorcism, The Return of the Exorcist, The Possessor, and The Exorcist III—Cries and Shadows has been available in an equally confusing variety of edits. Rushed into production after the Italian release of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist in September of 1974, the film’s production title was L’esorcista no. 2 …e il mio grido giunga a te (“Exorcist 2… and My Cry Reaches You”). Apparently Angelo (“Elo”) Pannacciò stepped in when the original director, Franco Lo Cascio (aka “Luca Damiano”), left midway through production. (Lo Cascio has a small cameo in the film as a photographer.)

A privileged young man, Piero (Jean-Claude Vernè) becomes possessed by a witch (Mimma Monticelli) after photographing her at the Monte Gelato waterfalls, a site that has connections to the activities, two centuries prior, of a group of Satanists led by a rogue priest (Franco “Frank Garfield” Garofalo). Piero’s behaviour becomes increasingly combative, and only a nameless American exorcist (Richard Conte, in his final screen role) can save him. 

Its plot clearly modelled on that of Friedkin’s film, Cries and Shadows nevertheless has obvious localised resonance when considered within the context of the Years of Lead, including well-documented crimes such as the 1975 Circeo massacre, and other Italian films about young people “acting out” under the influence of radical ideologies (eg, Vittorio Salerno’s Fango Bollente, 1975). Here, the corrupting influence is supernatural in origin. As in many of its contemporaries, the film also places emphasis on taboo sexual behaviours (including Piero sexually assaulting and murdering his own mother) as symptoms of demonic possession. Nevertheless, Cries and Shadows is somewhat atypical inasmuch as the character experiencing possession is male: the majority of Eurohorror films about possession featured possessed young women being exorcised by a male priest, a plot mechanic which has obvious patriarchal connotations.

The film makes excellent use of its locations, including the Monte Gelato waterfalls and medieval hilltop village of Calcata in the Province of Viterbo. Worth mentioning too is the atmospheric score from Giuliano Sorgini, which in its use of groans and cries recalls Sorgini’s highly-regarded score for Jorge Grau’s The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (1974).

El juego del diablo (Devil’s Exorcist, Jorge Darnell 1975)

During a trip to a wax museum, Catholic schoolgirl Sheila (Imma de Santis) becomes fascinated with one of the exhibits: an effigy of a tall man (José Lifante) in a dark suit. Subsequently, she begins to experience strange visions, seeing this man following her. Concerned, Sheila’s father (Luis Prendes) seeks the help of a psychologist, Dr Liza Greene (Maria del Puy). Sheila’s behaviour becomes increasingly troublesome, and—unbeknownst to the others—whilst at hospital she murders a young boy in an oxygen tent by intentionally turning off his oxygen supply. She also kills her own mother (Alicia Altabella) by pushing her off a balcony, an incident which is written off as an accidental death. Following Sheila’s mother’s funeral, Dr Greene volunteers to take care of Sheila. She takes Sheila to her cottage on the coast. However, Greene finds that this does not remedy whatever is afflicting Sheila, but in fact makes it worse.

Taking place amongst the privileged classes, Devil’s Exorcist depicts all human relationships as cold, transactional, and dysfunctional. Sheila’s parents’ marriage is combative, and both parents act distantly towards their daughter; Dr Greene’s relationship with her lover, Dr Jack Morris (Jack Taylor), is abusive. In the midst of this, Sheila develops a curious androphobia centred on haunting hallucinations in which she is pursued by the mysterious figure she first encounters at the wax museum. Played by José Lifante, who had an equally striking presence in Jorge Grau’s Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue and as Dracula in Darnell’s subsequent film (Tiempos duros para Drácula, 1976), this man is shown in Sheila’s visions—tall, gaunt, and enigmatic—walking towards the camera in slow-motion, surrounded by swirling mist.

Devil’s Exorcist’s narrative is closely modelled on that of The Exorcist, with one key difference: Darnell’s film features neither an exorcism nor an exorcist. In fact, though Sheila is clearly suffering from demonic possession, the notion of possession is not mentioned at all, and unlike many Eurocult films about possession Devil’s Exorcist also features no role for a priest. Despite this, the film presents the possessed Sheila’s behaviour in ways that mimic the behaviour of Regan in Friedkin’s film: taking to writhing and groaning in her bed, she becomes disruptive and antagonistic towards her parents, but here she escalates to murder (of a child, a dog, and her own mother). With no role for a priest, no explanation is given for the origins or motivations of whatever is possessing Sheila. Nevertheless, at the end of the film this entity passes on to the medical professional (Greene) who has tried to help the child throughout the narrative—much as in the final scene of The Exorcist, the demon Pazuzu transfers from Regan into the body of Father Karras. 

L’osceno desiderio (Obscene Desire, Giulio Petroni 1978)

Following a whirlwind romance, young American woman Amanda (Marisa Mell) marries Italian playboy Andrea Orsomandi (Chris Avram). Amanda returns with Andrea to his family villa in Italy. In town, Amanda meets folklorist Peter Clark (Lou Castel), who tells Amanda that the land on which Andrea’s villa sits also encompasses a deconsecrated church that is claimed to be built on the gravesite of a witch who cursed the Orsomandi bloodline. Amanda falls pregnant, but when Andrea’s friends Rachel (Laura Trotter) and Fabio (Javier Escriva) arrive at the villa and engage with Andrea in esoteric rites, Amanda becomes suspicious. Clark reveals that he is in fact a priest, and suggests that Andrea has involved Amanda in an occult plot; the baby she is carrying may be something demonic. Meanwhile, a mysterious killer is murdering sex workers in the town nearby. Could the murderer be Andrea, or perhaps Clark?

Known by most Eurocult fans for the five Spaghetti Westerns he directed between 1967 and 1972, Petroni wasn’t particularly proud of Obscene Desire and often proclaimed that the film he completed before it, 1975’s Lips of Lurid Blue, was his true swansong. That said, with a plot that draws heavily on Bluebeard (or Du Maurier’s Rebecca), Obscene Desire offers a fascinating melange of genres popular in Italian cinema at the time, marrying elements of the post-Exorcist demonic possession film, the Rosemary’s Baby-style coven plot, and even aspects of the giallo all’italiana. The latter elements bubble to the surface in the quite graphic scenes—shot predominantly from the killer’s point-of-view—that feature a mysterious assassin who targets sex workers, carving a cruciform symbol into the chests of his victims.

The picture’s blunt title highlights the extent to which Petroni’s picture tried to appeal to the sexploitation cinema crowd, and the film foregrounds the presence of Marisa Mell—an actress known for “sexpot” roles in many European films of the 1960s and 1970s. In its staging, a scene in which Amanda is sexually assaulted by an unseen demon looks back to Rosemary’s Baby but also anticipates Sidney J Furie’s The Entity (1982). The emphasis on sex and nudity (another lengthy and quite graphic scene features Amanda spying on Rachel and Fabio as they make love) seems to have been the key motivator behind Petroni’s desire to distance himself from Obscene Desire in his later years.

Making strong use of its locations and plentiful night-time photography, Obscene Desire benefits from an eerie sense of place and an evocative score by Carlo Savina.  

Un’ombra nell’ombra (Ring of Darkness, Pier Carpi 1979)

Depictions of children/young people in Italian horror films of the 1970s tend to intersect with the popular (during that era at least) genre of lacrima films: “tearjerker” melodramas about family breakdown and topics such as child illness. (The lacrima films are often claimed to have originated with Luigi Comencini’s 1966 film Misunderstood, a tragic story about a father and his sons whose relationship becomes strained following the death of the boys’ mother.) Many of the specifically Italian films about demonic possession take place within broken family units, with absent fathers, overindulged children, and toxic mothers all being particularly recurring paradigms.

All of these elements are present in Ring of Darkness, whose narrative focuses on teenage Daria (Lara Wendel), the product of an unholy union—which took place during a Black Mass—between Lucifer and Carlotta (Anne Heywood). Carlotta is part of a coven comprised of wealthy women who would conjure Lucifer and engage in orgies with him. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this has had long-term consequences for each of the coven’s members. Daria acts cruelly towards her mother and peers, and as she becomes cognisant of her diabolical heritage, her fiendish father develops a particularly apocalyptic plan for her.

In this family, Lucifer (played by handsome fotoromanzi model Ezio Miani) is the absent father, Daria is a particularly cruel and overindulged teenager, and Carlotta is the toxic “cold” mother. Dressed in scarves and trendy jumpers, this film’s Lucifer seems more like a member of the metropolitan bourgeoisie than a traditional horns-and-pitchfork wielding demon.

Directed by Pier Carpi, a writer of non-fiction books and novels who made only one other feature, Ring of Darkness marries elements of The Exorcist with The Omen, The Bad Seed and Rosemary’s Baby. The film was based on Carpi’s own novel, published in 1974. Responding to claims that Ring of Darkness aped The Exorcist, Carpi claimed his novel he been written during the 1960s but struggled to find publication. The film had a difficult journey to the screen, production beginning in 1977 but halting a number of times owing to financial issues and the departure of a key cast member who objected, on moral grounds, to a line of dialogue denouncing abortion as “monstrous” and criticising governments who permit the practice as “composed of criminals.” In 1979, producer Piero Amati filmed additional sequences, mostly involving nudity shot with doubles/stand-ins, with the intention of making the picture more commercially viable. (Perhaps not coincidentally, in late 1979 Carpi—who was a television personality at the time—reinvented himself as something of a moral puritan who railed against onscreen sex and nudity.)

With great supporting performances from the likes of Ian Bannen, Frank Finlay, Marisa Mell, and John Philip Law, the film was also released in English as Circle of Fear and Satan’s Wife. Worth noting too are bizarre claims in the Italian press at the time of the film’s cinema release that actress Irene Papas had been assaulted by a ghost during filming of the climactic exorcism sequence.

This article is based on research conducted by the writer in preparation for an article, “House of Exorcism: Possession, Exorcism, and the Family in Eurocult Films, 1974–1979,” published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Supernatural Studies: https://www.supernaturalstudies.com/previous-journal-issues/vol-9-issue-1/lewis