Exorcism

Paul Naschy claimed to have started writing the screenplay for "Exorcismo" long before "The Exorcist" came out. It is difficult not to conclude that he finished writing it afterward. There is a scene in which the possessed young woman interrupts a party with some Satanic behaviours that immediately recalls the famous "Exorcist" urination scene.

However, the subtle difference between the two scenes is striking. You see, Eurohorror (and especially Giallo, which"Exorcismo" is not) exists largely to show rich people being horrible and living empty lives. The women in these stories are usually creatures of pure hatred.

The scene with young Regan surprising the well-to-do party guests was truly disturbing, as we had an innocent child doing decidedly non-innocent things. The scene in "Exorcismo" when the not-as-young possessed girl makes a scene at the snobbish party, you're thinking, so what? She's only doing what women always do in European horror flicks.

At first I thought they just didn't have the budget or the know-how to make the girl look "possessed", so they just had her act horribly to the other characters, apparently unaware that all women in Eurohorror act that way anyway, so there's nothing shocking about seeing it here.

The movie does, eventually, make with some contact lenses and make-up, and give the possessed girl someone else's voice, but it's too late. There's just not enough going on in this movie to hold your attention for more than a moment. You're either thinking about how much better "The Exorcist" is than this movie, or you're not thinking about this movie at all.

Something is wrong with Leila (Grace Mills) and Father Adrian Dunning (Paul Naschy) is called in to evaluate the situation.

Some may call this a ripoff of The Exorcist with Linda Blair, but I'd rather see the flesh displayed here than some special effects. The fact is that The Exorcist was not seen in Spain before this film came out.

Anyway, it's a Paul Naschy film, and I am a completest.

You won't see amazing special effects, because they didn't exist. So it looks fake at times, but it was a good story and an interesting film.

Paul Naschy stole the show. I wasn't his finest hour, but he was head and shoulders above the rest. The makeup was good, and one could ignore how the film seemed to go all over the place just to see Naschy.

I know I'm in the minority, but I've always considered The Exorcist to be a rather dull film when the pea soup isn't hitting the fan. Exorcismo, a Spanish Exorcist rip-off starring Paul Naschy, is boring even when the possessed girl is doing her thing, and only regular nudity from its pretty female cast members prevent the film from being a total waste of time.

The girl with the demon problem is Leila (Grace Mills), whose heretical activities with a local Satanic cult has left her possessed by the malevolent spirit of her late father. Naschy plays priest Father Adrian Dunning, who is called by the girl's stepmother to lend his expertise. Meanwhile, people are turning up dead with their heads facing the wrong way.

The main problem with this film is that Leila doesn't develop cracked lips, crazy contacts, and bad complexion until well over an hour into the film, and even when she does, it's not very impressive, the few pesetas in the coffer not nearly enough to replicate the head-turning, vomit-spewing craziness of The Exorcist. With everything leading up to the possession being boring (nudity excepted), and everything after being almost as boring, the result is... well... boring.

Bums, boobs and bush aside, the only thing I found remotely interesting was that, despite being Spanish, the film was set in England (although certain shots of arid countryside are clearly not the rolling hills surrounding Bristol), and that Father Dunning is only too happy to carry out the exorcism without the go-ahead from his superiors (I always thought that express permission had to be granted by a bishop).

Exorcismo (1975)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Leila (Grace Mills) goes to a "love in" with her boyfriend and soon afterwards she begins acting strange towards her family. Over time her attitude grows more aggressive and before long her family asks Father Dunning (Paul Naschy) to look at her. Before long he realizes that she fell into a Satanic sect and has become possessed.

EXORCISMO is a Spanish horror film that's yet another cash-in on the success of THE EXORCIST. Naschy, who co-wrote the screenplay, says this was written before he saw that film but who knows what the truth is. Either way, for the most part this here is a mildly entertaining horror film that starts off well enough and ends on a good note but there are some questionable moments stuck in the middle.

If you've seen enough of these EXORCIST-rips then you know that all of them add a few touches of their own. The screenplay here pretty basic stuff, although the love in is something new and there are a few other new things including something involving a dog. I thought the film actually worked quite well in a sleazy type of way and especially early on with all of the nudity. The ending of the picture is also quite good as the possession aspect goes full steam and we get a pretty good exorcism sequence.

As I said, the biggest flaw with the movie is the middle section. For some reason the sleaze factor pretty much dries up and we've got around forty-five minutes worth of bland footage where not much is going on except for characters talking to one another. I do feel that Naschy gave a good performance and it was nice getting to see him in a straight role that didn't require make-up or messing around with women. Molina was also attractive in her role and added some fun.

EXORCISMO isn't the greatest film that you're going to see but it does offer up some mild entertainment that makes it worth watching if you're a fan of Naschy or the genre.

If this were not a very blatant rip-off of "The Exorcist" (which it very obviously is) it might be a halfway decent movie. Not a GREAT movie, but not too bad. But

instead, we get some scenes that we've seen before and were better the first

time around. A young, rich beauty (is there any other kind?) unknowingly

participates in a Satanic ritual and becomes possessed by the spirit of her late father, who died in an insane asylum. Things get moving with a head-turned- around-backwards murder (sound familiar?) and proceed onto the inevitable

demonic fried-egg eyeballs and scabby, vomit encrusted special effects make- up. There's nothing very new or original here. That said, it's still not the worst movie I've ever seen. It suffers from bad dubbing and a lame ending, but there's a few genuine scares, some groovy hippie coolness and lots of naked girls

dancing around, if you're into that sort of thing. Fans of the demonic possession genre may enjoy it, but die-hard fans of The Exorcist may be somewhat

disgusted. Four stars out of ten.