Director: Angelo Pannacciò (as Elo Pannacció), Luca Damiano (uncredited)
Year: 1975
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: Un urlo dalle tenebre; The Possessor; Naked Exorcism; Cries and Shadows; The Exorcist III: Cries and Shadows
Genre: Exorcism
Plot:
Concerned for her brother, a woman tries to explain the changes in his behavior to a priest, involving how everything changed following a trip with friends out to a remote site in the wilderness, which leads him to the possibility of being possessed and needing to be exorcised.
Review:
This wasn’t all that bad of a cheesy genre ripoff. Among the better qualities here stem from the solid idea of the film going back in time to explain why the exorcism is required, rather than deal with the build-up to recognizing the condition. Given that we are in the middle of a bizarre series of outbursts of religious hysteria around the country at the time, that there’s the plea to take the incident seriously makes for a fun time here involving the structure here involving how she believes this is the case with the retelling of what happened on the trip with his friends. Looking back on the hike out in the middle of the woods and being tormented by the demonic spirit trapped inside the artifact that slowly starts to overtake his mind, the series of bizarre encounters with other women that lead to sleazy sexual encounters or tormenting him with the type of ethereal voices in his head driving him to obscene acts, there’s some fun moments here from this kind of opening setup leading into the wholly unoriginal but still fun exorcism scenes with this one featuring screaming in demonic tongues, cursing people unnecessarily, levitating furniture and the usual elements shown in fine form, offering up enough to like.
There are some problematic issues with this one holding it back. The biggest issue here is the seemingly staggered pacing that results in the film going from flashback to flashback, trying to explain everything. It’s novelty in doing this makes it stand out slightly but it also manages to highlight the fact that there’s barely anything here until the hour mark when they’ve got the story caught up and the exorcism can start in earnest so it feels like we’re constantly waiting around for the big event to occur with the inundation of all the more erotic content featured in here. That’s the majority of the storyline here, as it comes off in an intriguing manner, yet the execution of it all keeps the film sluggish and one-note, moving from one sexual conquest to the next in the name of getting the idea of his possession over. With all of this going through the series of expected elements offering some of the same aspects in roughly the same order, it can also come together with a kind of familiarity that renders the film somewhat underwhelming in the right mindset. Combined with the kind of obvious low-budget limitations that are in place here, creeping in throughout, there are a few minor issues holding this one down.
Overview: **.5/5
A generally enjoyable if one-note sleazy Italian exorcism ripoff, there's a lot more to like here than expected, even though it still comes together with enough flaws to be a middling effort overall. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre fare or who are hardcore fans of this era of European genre cinema will have a lot to like, 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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