- AKA “Exorcism”
- Directed by Juan Bosch
- Written by Juan Bosch, Jodi Gigo, Paul Naschy
- Stars Paul Naschy, Maria Porsche, Maria Kosty
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This one was a slow burn, but a little too slow. Things pick up at the end, but overall there’s not much here that improved on “The Exorcist” that came out two years before. It’s fine and certainly watchable.
Synopsis
We begin at a black mass at the beach. The hippies all pass around the goblet, and they all drink. If they weren’t all high before, they were after that. The woman in charge puts the goblet back on the altar and cuts herself, bleeding into the goblet.
The next morning, Leila and Richard, one of the couples we saw last night, are in an auto accident. She tries to twist his head around backward, but she passes out first. Later at the hospital, the doctor says she’ll be fine. Her friends tell the doctor that Leila is acting strange. Leila’s brother John blames Richard for the changes in his sister.
Leila has changed; she’s randomly mean and violent now. John goes to see Father Adrian Dunning for help. He tells the priest the whole story. “They are taking drugs and meeting in heretic circles,” John accuses.
Father Dunning goes to see Patricia, Leila’s mother. She dismisses it as just that John is jealous and bitter; he’s not being objective about Leila. Deborah, Leila’s sister is there as well. Leila is pretty rude to the priest, but he just laughs it off. Meanwhile, John and Sandra the maid are making out in the greenhouse. When Dunning goes into the greenhouse, John warns him about some dangerous plants. Dunning doesn’t see there’s a problem, choosing to believe Patricia.
Deborah goes out to the pool house to change for a swim and finds John with his head twisted around backwards. Everyone attends the funeral, including Richard and the police inspector. The next morning, Leila attacks Sandra for no reason. We see that the chauffeur, Udo, has naked photos of Leila. Sandra finds the photos later.
Deborah goes to Father Dunning again, and this time, she wants his help. Now, he wants to talk to Richard. He goes over there and finds many creepy masks and decorations; clearly, Richard is into some weird stuff. Then Dunning finds Richard in bed, with his head turned around just like John’s.
Patricia talks to Dr. Lewton, and Dunning goes to see Leila. At Leila’s birthday party, Dunning talks to Lewton. Leila has a sudden hateful outburst and verbally attacks everyone in the room before storming out. Deborah thinks Leila should be put into a sanatorium, but Patricia is still in denial. Their father died in a sanitorium, and it’s possible that it runs in the family.
The police inspector tells Dunning all about demons and Satanists. He thinks the murders were ritualistic. Dr. Lewton cannot explain Leila’s case; none of the doctors can. Deborah thinks her sister is possessed.
Leila goes missing, and Deborah and Dunning go to find her. Deborah tells him that Leila has been going to the black masses and other things. They head over to the abandoned castle, where a ritual/party is going on right now. Leila is there at the center of everything. Udo is there, and he attacks Dunning. Suddenly, every cop in town rushes in to break up the party and arrest Udo. They take Leila home, and Doctor Lewton does a serious exam of her mental condition.
Everyone thinks Udo killed John and Richard. The doctor reports that there are no drugs in Leila’s system. Lewton hates to admit it, but it might be possession. Dunning explains that he did assist in an exorcism a few years ago, and he describes the case. Dunning doesn’t really believe it; he thought it was drugs at the time, and he suspects that Leila’s situation is the same.
Udo confesses to the murders and then commits suicide. Back at the house, someone kills Sandra. Leila calls upon her master and has an orgasm alone in the room. Cuts and wounds start to appear all over her body. She walks into her mother’s room, looking a bit like Linda Blair from “The Exorcist.” She speaks with her dead father’s voice. The servants rush in and stop Leila from killing Patricia.
The family and even the doctor all insist that Dunning do an exorcism. He looks in on Leila, and she’s a mess, so he finally agrees to do the ritual. Dunning hears howling downstairs; Bork the dog has found Sandra’ s body. They can’t blame that one on Udo.
Father Dunning starts having hallucinations and visions. He and the demon have words. Lots of words. Stuff flies around the room, the bed levitates, Leila writhes, twists, and squirms in bed as Dunning reads from the book and splashes her with holy water. The two of them roll down the steps, and Leila dies. Bork the dog, however, seems to have acquired the demon. The dog attacks Dunning until the priest stabs the dog with a fireplace poker.
Commentary
This was released two years after “The Exorcist” was a big hit. It’s not the same story, but there are obvious similarities, especially at the end.
Leila’s demon makeup was really good, and her contact lenses were especially good here. Other than that, there wasn’t much in the way of makeup or special effects.
It was fairly slow. It started well, but the priest took a little too much convincing in this one before he got to the good stuff. The characters and actors all do well here, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen many times and many ways before.