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THE SATANIC SCREEN
L 'Anticbnsto.
Mario Gariazzo's L'OSSESSA aka THE SEXORCIST (1 974) largely did away with Fried kin's pretentious religiosity, shamelessly revea ling THE EXORCIST's barely hidden sexual agenda. It tells the tale of a young artist who seems to be possessed by the demon of erotic repression. Disturbed but excited by her mother's flagrant S&M l ifestyle, it takes the local Padre to release her from Satan's bondage. L'OSSESSA d iffers from its American role model in that the self-sacrificing priest performing the rites here is attracted by the possessed woman he seeks to exorcise. The would-be Orson Welles of Brazilian horror films, Jose Marins perhaps better known as Coffin Joe - was always drawn to the kind of religious m a n ia THE EXORCIST exuded. His EXORCISMO NEGRO aka BLACK EXORCISM ( 1 974), filmed crudely in black and white, actually has little to do with the Fried kin movie, save for a desire to cash in on the title. Here, Marins reprises his Coffin Joe character, incoherently playing up some of the Satanic themes his previous films had always suggested. A n acquired taste, Marin's films have never seemed as interesting to me as they are to his considerable cult following, but I mention this picture only to show how international in scope Exorcismania was at its height. LISA E IL DIAVOLI aka LISA AND THE DEVIL (1972) was an atmospheric Mario Bava film that touched tangentially on Satan through the character of Telly Savalas, who may (or may not) be the Devil haunting the heroine's imagination. Sadly, Bava's film was sucked into the EXORCIST black hole by an American distributor. Whole scenes were chopped out, and hack director Alfred Leone was hired to quickly shoot some cheapo Friedkin-like Exorcism footage that had absolutely nothing to do with Bava's picture. The butchered mess was then dropped on the market as HOUSE OF EXORCISM. An original cut of Bava's film has now surfaced, and deserves a second gla nce. M ichael Walter shot his terrible MAGDALENA - VOM TEUFEL BESESSEN (MAGDALENA - POSSESSED BY THE DEVIL) in 1 973, while THE EXORCIST was still