Exorcism (1975)

Overrated and overhyped

How sad is this?

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Anne (Lina Romay, muse of this film's director, Jess Franco) is a performance artist who specializes in recreating Satanic rituals and spicing them up for old rich folks to savor. She also writes for a magazine, Garter and Dagger, that appeals to people who like this kind of dreck.Turns out that Mathis, one of the writers at the magazine (yep, Franco himself), was a priest kicked out of the church for following Old Testament beliefs instead of Vatican 2. After overhearing Anne and her assistant planning a Black Mass (not an actual one, more like a sex party, which come to think of it, why is a man of the cloth working for a porn magazine? And wouldn't an orgy be just as bad as a Black Mass?), Mathis kills each and every person involved.There's another cut of the film, Demoniac, which is just death and gore with none of the sex. It's 69 minutes long. And there's another version called Sexorcismes that remakes this film with added hardcore footage, including Franco himself showing up for the party. And Franco remade it again as El Sádico de Notre-Dame.Under any title, this movie is the absolute shits. It fails at horror. It fails at being sexy. It fails at being interesting. It even fails at being an Exorcist clone because it has nothing to do with exorcism!Look - when I tell you a movie is bad, trust me. It's bad. Real bad.

Sometimes, watching a film by Spanish Director Jess Franco only covers half the experience. The other half is in tracking down the definitive version of the film, or even working out which the definitive version actually is. 'Demoniac' seems to be the name given to the dubbed version of X-rated 'Sexorcismes (1975)', and/or 'El sádico de Notre-Dame (1979)', which was expanded to give, as Franco puts it, 'greater character motivation'. Possibly then, this is the original version, before additional footage was added.Lina Romay, nearly naked, star-shaped and chained to a rack, is being tortured by a similarly clad female. In a favourite Franco trick, her indignities are revealed as being part of a show. When it's over, an audience applauds politely. By day, she's Anna, secretary to Raymond (Pierre Taylou) at 'Garter and Dagger' magazine (together they stage sadomasochistic shows in a sleazy Parisian underworld). An occasional contributor to the publication is Mathis Vogel played by Franco. He is not a convincing actor. His decision to cast himself in many of his films is odd (although the characters he plays often interact with a bevy of half-naked females, which may well explain the choice). There are many things to enjoy about 'Demoniac' – most of them provided by Romay who doesn't remain troubled by clothing for any length of time.Vogel is a defrocked Priest who also secretly tortures nude females in a nearby rented room. The 'justification' is, he is unhinged enough to convince himself he is 'purifying' these people, taking his victims from such rituals as the one that opened the story, believing them to be genuine black mass events. One couple is visited in their hotel directly after a protracted orgy scene, where the elderly husband is remonstrating with his young wife for enjoying herself too much. When she replies that anything else would be a bore, he replies, "I just don't like looking ridiculous," which must surely be irony, as he is sporting the most appalling silvery white wig.This is far from my favourite Franco film, but like them all, it has merits. The camera-work is often ham-fisted, swooping in on …. nothing, and then pulling back again. There's no sense of drama or pace, and Franco injects no character into Vogel, so his motivation seems arbitrary. "I am the sword of the Lord," indeed! However, the sleazy underworld of a murky Paris is nicely conveyed, and those who enjoy the hirsute pleasures of 1970's pornography have plenty to enjoy here. However, the final light-hearted lines of banter between the cops at the end, seem to have been drafted in from another film.

Typical Franco trash featuring dubbing sounding as if it was done by some people they pulled off the street. The emotion of the original language would hardly have helped this yawn fest about a wacko ex-priest who kills people to save their souls. Despite the sex, its not sexy, despite the violence, its not very violent. Worth watching only for Franco-philes who find naked old men and retro hairy European women arousing. Horror fans steer clear.

I just saw the uncut softcore version, from 1974 of this "recommended" horror movie and was amazed how miserable it was. The acting was bad, the english dubbing was the worst I have seen, the gore was unrealistic, and the plot was stupid. The film was just boring from start to end.If something should be called "Euro-trash" this must be it.Barely for Franco-fans.