Director: Paolo Lombardo
Year: 1972
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: L'amante del demonio; Lucifera: Demonlover
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Traveling through the countryside, a group of friends stop off at a local castle to take in the sights, which soon prompts them to imagine a time centuries earlier where they’re turned into rivals for the same figure that promises to sell her wildest dreams in exchange for her soul.
Review:
This was a fairly underwhelming and somewhat problematic Gothic horror outing. Among the big problems here stems from the implications of what’s going on while the group stays at the castle. The setup involving the group going around the countryside trying to find a place to relax and coming across the castle where they’re invited to stay, while the count, who lives there, starts to close the facility up, starts the film with a rather intriguing setup, but it’s far too confusing to make much sense otherwise. The whole idea of the present-day friends being rivals in the flashback scenes makes sense when you know who the characters are beforehand so that when the characterizations switch there's some stakes to things, which doesn’t happen here when it takes the girls into different personas almost as soon as we’re introduced to them so there’s a disconnect to what’s going on from when we’re initially introduced to them and then no less than five minutes later are told that wasn’t important and to follow a different storyline instead.
It doesn’t help matters that the flashback scenes are just as confusing and difficult to follow. This never makes it clear what’s supposed to happen, as it seems to drop the characters into various different scenarios but never commits to anything, with the friends being confirmed as witches, vampires, and ordinary sexual deviants at several points here, depending on the importance of the scene in question. With the storyline follows up on this by throwing a Satanic cult, a mysterious red-hooded figure wandering around the outskirts of the story, and ornate occult rituals for the woman because of what happened on her wedding day, but it’s not all that interested in tying these together with any kind of clarity. These things just seem to happen, and it moves on to the next setpiece with everything barely connected or referenced again, making it even harder to make sense of what’s going on.
The other big factor here is the sense of dullness and boredom from what’s presented here. The central idea had plenty of potential to provide some Gothic-tinged goodness with the past revelations making something out of the present-day situation, but rather than doing anything of any substance, all we get is endless scenes involving the duplicitous relationship where she steals the man’s boyfriend and manifests the need for capturing the relationship in earnest. None of this keeps the film moving along with any kind of momentum or energy, and it feels like a dull drama for long stretches of the running time, as the only times it really changes things up are when there’s some romantic couplings that bring about some fun nudity or the attempts at catching the demonic pact coming together. These scenes offer up some likable factors for the film, but it’s not enough to overcome the other drawbacks on display.
Overview: */5
A wholly disappointing Italian Gothic horror effort, there are some likable factors here, but it’s all pretty much undone by its more damaging and overwhelming negatives that leave this decidedly lacking. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre fare, are the more undiscerning Gothic horror effort, or are a fan of the creative crew, will have the most reason to like this, as most others should heed extreme caution.
This review is part of our ongoing series of reviews for Italian Horror Month, every November on the site:
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