Director: Ovidio Assonitis (as O. Hellman), Roberto D'Ettorre Piazzoli (as R. Barrett)
Year: 1974
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: Chi sei?; The Devil Within Her
Genre: Possession
Plot:
After learning she’s about to be pregnant, a woman starts to undergo a series of bizarre personality and behavioral shifts that concern her boyfriend to the point of hiring her friend to look after her, but when his true motivations are questioned, it leads to a battle for her child.
Review:
This was a decent enough if somewhat troublesome genre effort. Among the better elements here come from the intriguing enough story about the gradual discovery of what’s going on and how the whole pregnancy comes together here. With the early exploits into the family life, raising the kids together and trying to make ends meet while undergoing the telltale signs of a troubled relationship, with his reaction to the news of her pregnancy and how the kids take everything in, presents this with a fun setup into the rest of the story here. The news about the unnatural means of her pregnancy, going from a wholly unrealistic sense of escalation that doesn’t match with how she was pregnant at the time they say she is, to the violent outbursts that threaten those around her, that make everything come together with the kind of build-up that hints at something far darker than expected.
That turns around nicely into a highly successful series of scenes showing the generally advanced supernatural showcase for her growing powers. With the ability to snap out at anyone whenever she wants, manipulate objects around her, or break them with inhuman strength that belies her stature, it’s quite fun to see the events unfold with the explanation around the unnatural being she’s pregnant with, hinted at as being the cause, only for the cast to not be so sure. When it starts being more overt with the heavy breathing sounds coming from the stomach, the manipulation of the surrounding environment, and her being changed physically into the more obvious signs of possession, this turns at long last into the obvious clone of its inspiration with the demonic voices, vomiting strange goo, and other forms of extreme antics that generate the kind of action required in the genre.
This one does have some issues here, holding this one back. The main issue with what’s going on is the wholly convoluted and underwhelming storyline that tries to paint her former lover as some sort of otherworldly figure looking after the pregnancy. This is a barely interesting storyline that doesn’t get much explanation for why he’s going through with the idea of making sure the pregnancy comes full circle, or what interest the Devil has in making sure he’s there to protect her when he can do that on his own. His scenes attempting to persuade the father to let him into the inner circle and bring the child to this world just come off as confusing with the whole thing being this random stranger trying to get involved with her bizarre pregnancy when he’s not a trained medical figure or has any training in the matter, and the finale twist is so easy to guess it doesn’t make the scenes mean anything as it’s just terminably endless and uninteresting.
The other issue here is the film’s excessively long running time, where it dwells on issues far longer than necessary without making much of an impression on things one way or another. The first half presents the family life building up to the possession and her pregnancy, but it does so with the kids being abominably awful and hard to care for due to how they constantly pick on each other, curse like adults, and are more self-centered than anything. The adults are a little better, with her being a weak pushover and him being a workaholic not interested in her pregnancy, and the scenes with them in the first half are interminable as a result, even if it does make the storyline work. It also ends up keeping the actual scenes of possession and demonic influence until nearly the hour mark, and it keeps the confrontations so brief that they barely matter, so the film is longer than it should be. These are what bring this down overall.
Overview: ***/5
An intriguing if somewhat heavily flawed genre effort, there are some positive points to like here, while being let down heavily by some of the other factors featured here that are pretty impactful. Those with an appreciation for the style or who are curious about it will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
This review is part of our ongoing series of reviews for Italian Horror Month, every November on the site:
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