Product Details

• Actors: Telly Savalas, Elke Sommer, Sylva Koscina, Alessio Orano, Gabriele Tinti
• Directors: Alfredo Leone, Mario Bava
• Format: Color, DVD, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Image Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: May 16, 2000
• Run Time: 187 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305837236
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #238,417 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The House of Exorcism/Lisa and the Devil" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Directed by giallo maven Mario Bava, House of Exorcism is a truly rare cinematic find: a completely insane film. Sure, there are plenty of movies that are a little quirky, and even more that start off reasonably and then go around the bend later on, but in House of Exorcism, at no time is anything even remotely comprehensible happening. (No, not even if you watch it a second time.) Elke Sommer stars as Lisa, a beautiful tourist who spies an ancient fresco of the devil and seconds later leaves her tour group to become hopelessly lost. Fresco look-alike Telly Savalas, tongue and lollipop firmly in cheek, shows up holding a life-size mannequin and we're off. What follows is a whirl of opulent sets, vaguely menacing Europeans, and plenty of blood. It's the kind of movie where mysterious and weighty significance is given to lines such as "I brought you some cake. It's your favorite... with chocolate sprinkles." Like all great art, House of Exorcism asks more questions than it answers: Aren't we all just mannequins? Is Telly's face supposed to be obscured by that candelabrum? If those ghosts are so powerful, why have they been seated in coach? All this and more awaits you in The House of Exorcism. --Ali Davis

Product Description

This very special edition features a rare double treat. Mario Bava first directed Lisa and the Devil (1973, 95min), a lush, lyrical film about a beautiful, mysterious woman who goes on a terrifying journey of murder, necrophilia and horrific revelations. It is widely regarded as one of Bava's finest films and certainly his most ambitious. The film later was re-edited and released as The House of Exorcism (1975, 91min), adding the horror of diabolical possession, following The Exorcist's phenomenal success.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good DVD of Euro Horror Classic, May 16, 2000

By 

frankenberry (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The House of Exorcism/Lisa and the Devil (DVD)

The new Double-DVD of Mario Bava's great LISA AND THE DEVIL and it's re-edited abomination version HOUSE OF EXORCISM is a must for euro-horror fans. Bava's original version of LISA is one of the best lyrical euro-horror films ever. The presentation here looks just like the old ELITE laserdisc which also suffered from some slight digital artifacting...nothing awful, but it isn't perfect. Everything about this move is great- the music, the style, just the general feel of it...it's also completely unconventional. Of course, than there's the re-edited HOUSE OF EXORCISM version which added new "exorcist" type scenes and rearranged the film to make it accessible to audiences in the mid-70's. It's bad, of course, but it's great to have both versions together to see exactly how the film was damaged by the re-edit....this DVD in a way is the euro-trash fan's version of the Criterion "Brazil" DVD! As far as extras go, the DVD unfortunately does not have 2 alternate scenes that were on the ELITE LD - one being an alternate extra gory scene of Silva Koscina's death and the other an alternate erotic scene between Elke and Orano. The DVD does contain the extra 'unfinished' softcore sex scene, though, so why the other 2 scenes were left off is strange and disappointing. Other extras include the uncompleted L&TD trailer (also on the LD) plus 2 trailers for HOE. There's a very minimal "photo/poster gallery" (lasts 23 seconds! ) and some minimal filmos and bios. The HOUSE OF EXORCISM has an audio track featuring Elke and producer Leone who explains how he butchered the film (although he doesn't word it that way!). All in all, it's a GREAT DVD from IMAGE - don't pass this one up!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mario Bava's Lisa And The Devil/ Leone's House Of Exorcism, April 15, 2001

By 

John Peterson "bigtimemusiclover" (Marinette, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The House of Exorcism/Lisa and the Devil (DVD)

In the liner notes of Lisa And The Devil/The House Of Exorcism Alfredo Leone ask Mario Bava that if Mario had carte blanche (a blank check), what movie would he make? His answer was this movie, Lisa And The Devil, which is Bava's most personal film.

Lisa (Elke Sommer) is a foreigner in a tourist group (it's never explained what country she's from, or what country they're visiting). While admiring a fresco of the devil (which looks amazingly like Telly Savalas), she hears music and is drawn to it, abandoning the tourist group in the process. This leads her to a man(Telly Savalas) carrying a life-sized dummy. Lisa recognizes him as the devil from the painting and from this moment on the viewer is taken for a nightmarish journey that's hard to tell which is actually real or a hallucination. Not that the end result is a mess, far from it; it is remarkable how Bava holds such a non-linear plot together so well where other filmakers before and since failed and it's easy to see why this is Bava's favorite film. The cast ensemble is excellent and so is the direction. It's definitely one of his best.

Unfortunately Leone couldn't find a distributor for this film. Seeing the success of The Exorcist, Leone had Bava reshoot some scenes that had Lisa "posessed" (spouting profanities, spewing pea soup, and so on). Bava balked at filming material he felt was blasphemous, so he walked and Leone finished filming the scenes, edited them into Lisa And The Devil, and called it The House Of Exorcism. The end result is really pathetic and an insult to Mario Bava's movie. There is an audio commentary with Leone and Elke Sommer which is enjoyable and provides some of the information in making Lisa And The Devil but mostly tries to justify the filming of The House Of Exorcism. In my opinion he fails.

The DVD special features include beside the commentary, a Mario Bava biography, Bava's and the cast filmographies, a theatrical trailer for Lisa and the Devil, two theatrical trailers for House Of Exorcism (whoopee), a deleted softcore sex scene between Silva Koscina and Gabriele Tinti, a photo and poster gallery, and liner notes by Bava scholar Tim Lucas. Too bad there wasn't an audio commentary by Tim Lucas on Lisa And The Devil; his knowledge is incredible and he's always interesting to listen to.

As bad as House Of Exocism is, I still recommend getting this DVD not only for comparison's sake but for the Leone/Sommer commentary. Otherwise, get the Lisa And The Devil DVD which is available seperately.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars yet another testimony to the genius of Mario Bava, March 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Lisa And The Devil [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Mario Bava was one of the great filmmakers of his time. Revered and often imitated by illustrious contemporaries like Fellini and Visconti, his work has had long echoing reverberations through the films of David Lynch, Quentin Tarentino, and the entire body of hopelessly unimaginative slasher films that tried, and failed, to copy Bava's films. Yet he was largely dismissed and/or despised in his time. Lisa and the Devil is possibly his most brilliant, and easily his most personal film. It's also a sad example of the way this innovator was treated in his time. More a cinematic poem than traditional "movie", this is a surreal, stream of consciousness fantasy about a girl (Elke Sommer, who was never better) who may or may not be dead and a butler (Telly Savalas, sucking a lollipop) who may or may not be the devil. Lisa and the Devil is beautifully photographed in vibrant colour, violent, disturbing, and completely brilliant. Inventive sequences abound, encompassing concepts as broad as identity, memory vs. hallucination, necrophilia, past vs. present, reincarnation, etc...There's literally no limit to this film's depth and beauty. Unfortunately, its complete disregard for conventional narrative flow consigned it to a truly horrible fate, being butchered beyond recognition, having extra scenes added to make it seem like an Exorcist rip-off, it was finally released as House of Exorcism. If you see this version anywhere, you should not only avoid buying it, you should also destroy it. It's an atrocity and an insult to the memory of Mario Bava and this, possibly his greatest work.