There's always room for giallo

The Psychic, 1977
(a.k.a. Sette Note in Nero, Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes)
dir. Lucio Fulci


I am no expert on Italian horror. I really love Phenomenon and some other Dario Argento movies, and I’ve seen a few of Lucio Fulci’s movies (including Zombie at least three or four times). But I don’t really have a sense of what to expect from Fulci, except these things: terrible special effects, weird inappropriate sexual content, interesting new kinds of gore, and characters who behave in ways that make no sense at all (the classic example of this last being the delightful shit-I-forgot-to-shoot-fritz-in-the-head plot of Zombie). When I rented The Psychic, I thought I would enjoy it for occasional surprise kills and an entertaining absence of logic or plot, but apart from some decapitations or falls-from-a-great-height or maggot-infested corpses, I thought I would be…well, kinda bored. I did not think I would genuinely enjoy the visual aspects of the film. I was pleasantly surprised. The utterly unsubtle use of color, especially red (another alternate title could be The Red Lampshade) puts this movie in a category—with Suspiria—of just plain beautiful movies.

Lisa and the Devil, 1973
(a.k.a. La Casa dell'esorcismo, The House of Exorcism)
dir. Mario Bava
(n.b. I was confused by Lisa and the Devil, and I didn't follow every minute of the plot, but I'm pretty sure there is no exorcism in this movie.)

I have no idea what this movie is about.


The eyes, Leandro, what color are the eyes?
Changeable my lady. But by candlelight they are blue.

Lisa is an American tourist. She sees a weird fresco of the devil, carrying a body of some kind, and looking a lot like Kojak. Then she gets lost in the narrow streets and alleys of Some Foreign City, meets Telly Savalis, and gets creeped out. Somehow, she ends up staying in an ancient house where Telly Savalis is, um, what, the butler? I guess? I’ll admit I probably did not pay as much attention as this movie requires. It seemed like every time I looked away from the screen for a minute, then looked back, a pair of completely new characters are making out in a different location, then the camera focuses on a statue nearby. Eventually, the blind matriarch of the strange ancient house reveals what everyone (except the audience) has been thinking: Lisa is the reincarnation of the dead bride of the blind woman’s creepy son.* Therefore, the son must chloroform Lisa, and have sex with her in the bed where he still keeps the skeletal remains of Elena, his first bride. Obviously.

Lisa and the Devil is surreal and confusing, but in a good way. The cast, especially Telly Savalis (looks like the devil, is the devil, eats many lollipops, sings about flowers), give memorable performances, and I found the final scene genuinely creepy and interesting.

Let’s just say this: Lisa and the Devil is my favorite movie about necrophilia and lollipops.

*It might be overstating it to say that Psycho invented the modern horror movie, but seriously what percentage of the last half-century of scary movies have not been about nutty sons and their overbearing mothers? Ten percent? Twenty? (Alien, Friday the 13th, Dead Alive are the first three that spring to mind…)