Plot
Danila, a beautiful young apprentice art restorer, visits a deconsecrated Italian church with one of her art institute professors to assist in identifying artifacts worth saving before the long-abandoned house of worship with a notorious history of all-night orgies is finally demolished. What catches Danila’s eye is an olive-wood carving depicting one of the two thieves crucified alongside Jesus, and so they load up the life-sized statue and take it away for restoration.
That night at her dysfunctional parents’ house party, Danila inadvertently witnesses her mother engaging in kinky, sadomasochistic sex with a virile young lover. Disgusted, she leaves the party early, returning to her studio. But as she resumes work on a painting, behind her the wooden statue from the church seems to come alive, and the diabolical presence quickly possesses her – both carnally as well as spiritually.
Now an enslaved victim of Satan, the poor girl begins demonstrating lascivious, self-destructive behavior causing her disconcerted parents to immediately summon a doctor. Admitting he’s in over his head (“I’ll have to admit I’m quite puzzled […] I’ve seen some new factors or perhaps new symptoms […] which modify or indeed overthrow the first diagnosis I made“), the doctor recommends they consult a priest who determines an exorcism is the only solution, and so the possessed girl is quickly whisked off to a convent…
You are my slave, Danila. And so far you've been satisfactory, I might even say capable, but this is only the beginning...
Critique
3After a promising start showing the lovely artist Danila retrieving a disquieting wooden statue with Pygmalion-esque properties (“A sculpture in marble or wood can have life as much as any human being“), Mario Gariazzo’s film soon reveals its considerable artistic and conceptual shortcomings, devolving into a lackluster possession movie made in the wake of “The Exorcist” (1973) and filtered through the typical Italian tradition of accentuating the erotic dimension.
In this sense, “Enter the Devil” (later known as “The Eerie Midnight Horror Show” in North America) is the low-budget entry in the derivative but still dignified category of films such as “The Antichrist” (1974) by Alberto De Martino or “Beyond the Door” (1974) by the Roberto Piazzoli/Ovidio G. Assonitis team, although the mediocrity of some of the exorcism scenes is more reminiscent of the shoddy, amateurish work seen in trash such as Renato Polselli’s “The Reincarnation of Isabel” (1973).
The completely squandered cast delivers a host of more or less unbearable characters who all tend to talk like boring substitute teachers. The respected Luigi Pistilli partially redeems the movie, but even his acting charisma isn’t enough to keep this very leaky boat afloat. Among the not-very-special effects, they managed to throw in the obligatory scene with the possessed girl spewing greenish emesis right at the end.
Forgettable.
More Info
Quotes
- I see now I can trust you. You passed every test. You are my slave, Danila. And so far you've been satisfactory, I might even say capable, but this is only the beginning of the treatment I have in mind for this obstinate servant of my great enemy. I want him! I want to crush his insufferable stupid pride beneath my heel. You are mine, Danila, and when you make him yours, he'll be mine.
- We have discovered many cases of mental aberration where great emotional stress coupled with religious torments give rise to psychic disassociation whose symptoms seem to be like - I'll be blunt - possession, diabolical possession.
- And I suppose that's your excuse for submitting your body to whips and belts and other masochistic tomfoolery.
- There's no such thing as incest, it's only an invention of priests.
Trivia
- The film had nearly as many titles as Elizabeth Taylor had husbands. Originally called “L’Ossessa” in Italy, the movie was subsequently renamed “The Sexorcist”, “The Tormented”, “Enter the Devil”, and “The Devil Obsession” for release in English-speaking countries. Then later, in light of the success of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975), the movie was re-christened yet again for a brand-new US release in 1977 as “The Eerie Midnight Horror Show”, complete with new packaging and poster art featuring crimson lips and a blood-dripping font “eerily” similar to those of Jim Sharman’s 1975 cult classic.
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