Back in 1971, The Exorcist wasn't a movie yet, and devil possession horror flicks were pretty scarce.  There was one, though, that not only touched on satanic control of an otherwise innocent person (a female, to boot), but also managed to bring in World War Two, the Seven Deadly Sins (long before that other movie did), and even gave the punters a nice lezzie scene.  In fact, it was that "L-word" bit that really made this flick both very notorious and very profitable.  At least, it certainly proved that the flick should have been re- titled as...

By DAVE DUGGINS

Judging from their preface to this DVD edition of Devil’s Nightmare (originally entitled, La Plus longue nuit du diable), those Redemption Video guys are a bunch of kinky so-and-so’s.

They make sure you get off to a good start with this wonderfully cheesy, very European blood-and-boobs intro featuring lots of leather-studded babes with fake teeth, weird contact lenses and ample cleavage. And we’re not even into the movie yet! These folks all look like rejects from a West End S&M party. Nothing in the actual film approaches this level of direct-to-video cheesiness, but it’s pretty fun--and gives the film itself a little elegance in comparison.

The movie is an Italian-Belgian production from 1971, emphasis on the Italian (by appearances, all the Belgians did was throw some money in the pot, step aside and let the masters work). I lived in Italy for three years and I’ve been a fan of Italian cinema for far longer. I can easily believe any and all of this stuff comes from that beautiful, storied country, with its rich and dark traditions of tyranny, corruption. and murder (Machiavelli was born in Florence) and its more recent history of subversive cinema. But hey, let’s not get to self-important, all right?

Italy is also home to Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and more babes than you can shake a stick at. Erika Blanc, the star of this flick, is definitely a babe. There are two other babes in the movie, too, and they do get naked…together, in fact, which is what prompts most people to rent this DVD, I’m sure. Once you get past the cheesy titillation factor of that extremely short segment, what you’re left with is far from typical shock-show fare, although it might seem pretty been-there-done-that at first. There’s a lot of fun to be had here, and not a little intelligence at work in the story.

The setup is all about the cliché: hapless strangers, diverted from their tourist paradise by an unfortunately timed roadblock, spending one terrible night in a castle (didn’t the last flick I review have that same plot?). The castle is, of course, home to a blood- sucking creature in the finest Hammer tradition.

In this case, it’s a succubus--a sexual vampire, or a demon who seduces men, according to Russell Hope Robbin’s Encyclopedia Of Witchcraft and Demonology--rather than a traditional vampire, which is one of two original twists in the film. I don’t feel guilty in revealing spoilers here because the film does so in its first ten minutes; Baron Von Rhoneberg kills his own newborn daughter to try to break the curse of the succubus. This fails utterly, of course.

Moving ahead from our World War II opening, a nosy reporter takes pictures of the castle after the Baron has expressly forbidden it, always a good way to end up the first victim. Nosy reporters, like amorous teenagers in modern slasher films, are always the first victims in stories like this. It’s like an unwritten law. The reporter’s death scene is wonderfully overacted and gothically melodramatic, complete with lightning flashes and dramatic peals of thunder in the middle of a sunny day.

The woman, of course, was "frightened to death," something that happens with metronomic regularity in horror films but never seems to happen much in real life. It gives the townspeople something to talk about, and provides us with a little more useful exposition to overhear. Now we know for certain: the succubus has returned to the castle.

Next our busload of victims--er, I mean, excuse me, tourists--is introduced. They enter in a peculiar scene in which they all sit on a bus and stare at each other silently. From the way they look at each other, it’s obvious they don’t care for each other much. I wondered why they decided to take this trip together in the first place. We find out later that a couple of them at least like each other enough to have sex, but that’s not really saying much, is it?

Of course the road to their destination is blocked, and a kindly old gentleman diverts them to a nearby castle. Okay, he’s really a balding, cadaverous weirdo who likes burning piles of sticks at roadblocks in the middle of the afternoon. As far as the oblivious busload is concerned, he’s a kindly old gentleman. Isn’t it great how victims in horror films take absolutely no notice of the total bizarros surrounding them? Later, it transpires that he is a somewhat more impressive personage than the Village Idiot. But this I will not spoil.

When they arrive at the castle, one of the Italian lovelies almost gets clobbered by a falling chunk of the façade. Does this put them off? Certainly not. Inside, they are greeted by a couple of card-carrying members of the cadaverous balding guy’s weirdness club. These two are also members of the Hammer House of Horror Staple Character Set--the Cold, Staring Butler and the Unfriendly Housekeeper. They belong together, really.

Settling our guests in, the priest is told not to place his suitcase over a strange mark in front of the fireplace, and another guest finds a wounded pigeon in his room. The butler cheers them right up with a little historical anecdote: in 1436, Prince and Princess Von Something or Another had their throats cut while they slept. Sleep tight!

There is, in fact, a horrible story for every room in the castle. Meanwhile, in the basement, Baron Von Rhoneberg carries on like a mad scientist in a laboratory. Turns out he’s a modern-day alchemist, trying to transform lead into gold.

Now that all the introductions, pleasantries and intruding backstory are out of the way, we can get on with the lesbian love scene between two of our lovely—regrettably, soon to be dead--hotel guests.

It’s very brief, and by current standards it’s certainly very tame, but in 1971, viewed by American drive-in movie audiences, I’m sure it was pretty hot stuff. To me, it seems almost sweet, particularly in comparison to modern hardcore films, which are more like instruction manuals on sexual mechanics, with a very cold and mechanical camera looking on. Not so with this scene.

I’m not saying it’s high art or anything, but there does actually seem to be some affection between the two characters, which is nice. I’ve seen plenty of other films from this period, both foreign and American, where the sex is much more senseless and arbitrary.

Sweet, corny, cheesy--however you may slice it, the whole thing lasts maybe three minutes and we’re off to the races again. Unfortunately, at this point the race stops dead with a scene that should have been cut to half its length, if not removed entirely.

Set at the dinner table, with all the characters eating and talking, it falls totally flat dramatically, uses utterly turgid exposition-through-dialogue and offers us a whole bunch of stuff we already know. Why bother? Get on with it. The only thing the dinner table scene really offers is a chance to introduce everybody to Erika Blanc. At least we get that out of the way expeditiously.

Erika’s entrance is worth the price of admission. She glides smoothly around the table, eyeballing everyone--male and female alike--and generally cranking the sexual tension in the room like an over wound clock spring. She’s a real beauty, and that outfit is to die for. I’m sure Renfield will buddy up and include an appropriate still so I don’t have to waste words trying to describe it, but you really need to see her move in it to fully appreciate it.

Of course Erika Blanc’s character, Lisa Muller, is the succubus, returned to the castle just as the townspeople feared. There is some allusion to the idea that she’s after these folks because they somehow represent the seven deadly sins, but I find that a little hard to follow. It doesn’t really matter because apart from the priest, they’re all a bunch of jerks who deserve to be offed in those tried-and-true creative horror movie ways.

My brother isn’t really a horror movie fan, but he’s pretty sharp, and he once observed that horror movies are interesting all the way up until people start dying. With the possible exception of The Abominable Dr. Phibes, in which the victims are dispatched using various manifestations of the Biblical plagues of Egypt, I’d have to agree. How many different ways can you run people through a shredder?

It’s the shortcoming of plot for effect, which pretty much runs the show from the midpoint on in most horror movies. Another notable exception is The Exorcist, which breaks most of the standard horror movie rules and still manages to be my personal contender for best horror film ever made. But that’s another article.

Here, the succubus spends a lot of time teasing the priest before ultimately focusing her attention on the glutton of the group (for him, the deadly sin is easily identifiable; this guy is a serious pig for his food). In this scene we get our first look at the scary side of Lisa--you know, the demon that seduces and traps the soul. A fairly simple, stark makeup was chosen, augmented by pale, flat lighting. Brush all that gorgeous hair away from her high forehead, her entire face shining like a lamp, burning eyes, lips pinched to a thin and shriveled line--voila, one female demon. Simple, stark and effectively creepy.

From that point on, it’s open season on our hapless hotel guests. She runs through them all with military efficiency, landing her on the priest’s doorstep again. If you’re like me, you spend most of your time watching the victims die sort of half-thinking, "Okay, how’s this sucker going to end?" I thought I had it pretty much bagged…and boy, was I wrong. And I was really glad I was wrong.

There’s a delightful twist at the end of it all, and the finale is a pleasant departure from what I expected to happen. In the interest of not spoiling what the film itself doesn’t spoil, I’ll leave it at that.

The last fifteen minutes are definitely the best. There’s enough camp here to please the schlock-meisters out there, but there’s real meat, too. This is a masters thesis compared to many of the ridiculous attempts at supernatural story craft I’ve dealt with in this forum. Rent or buy, but enjoy--and watch out for redheads.

Thanks, Dave.  This flick, The Devil's Nightmare, is probably somewhat familiar to many readers, since it was shown (truncated, of course) under many titles on independent TV channels and early cable TV (it was a fave on the old USA Network's Night Flight).  It gave lots of folks probably their first taste of Euro-sleaze in general and of Italian horror cheese in particular.  No doubt, since it's a well-produced flick, with, as Dave pointed out, an actual plot and a twist ending that's truly twisty, it left a good taste in those viewer's mouth and made them hungry for more and more--a hunger that the likes of Argento and Fulci were more than happy to sate.

Article copyright © Dave Duggins

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