Director: Corrado Farrina
Year: 1973
Country: Italy/France
Alternate Titles: Kiss Me Kill Me; Baba Yaga: Devil Witch
Genre: Witchcraft
Plot:
After meeting by chance, a photographer starts to believe the strange woman who gave her a ride home from a modeling session and the hallucinogenic visions she has had since are connected, and tries to uncover the reason for the incidents taking place, which brings her into conflict with a powerful witch.
Review:
For the most part, this was an immensely likable and effective genre effort. Among the better factors on display here is the immensely likable storyline that serves to bring about a rather fun psychological breakdown over the course of the film. Starting off with a detailed look at her professional work as a photographer and the relationships she has not just with the models at her studio but her boyfriend, who tries to keep her one-note life in familiar order, this makes the intriguing notion of her meeting the enigmatic woman shortly afterward and getting to uncover the idea of her behavioral changes quite soon. The seductive nature of the woman and getting to witness the gradual change from the confident, outgoing personality to someone who seems to be obsessed with the strange doll left behind, flaking on date nights, or simply being withdrawn into herself creates an intriguing enough change that leaves this with a fun setup.
Seeing this early work alongside some of the more overt genre fare that starts to develop over time as she discovers the strange secret of her neighbor. The obvious fascination with the encounters, vivid dreams about them being together and enjoying sapphic trysts, or other sequences following up on the abnormal aspects of her life ever since, create the kind of budding suspense about what’s going on with her and help further the idea of her impending seduction attempts. That she’s being openly haunted by the doll given to her or the eternal threats of being part of her envoy make some of the scenarios all the more intense and chilling, especially once the whole reveal of everything takes place and the generally sleazy approach to taking her captive results in a fantastic need to rescue her from the woman’s clutches during a raging thunderstorm at night in a full-on Gothic horror setpiece makes for a solid time here, especially with the fine nudity to keep this one going.
There are a few issues here that bring this one down. The main factor with this one is the immensely confusing and underwhelming finale, where it tends to bring up a rather rushed idea without doing much of anything about it. That this tends to be the main confrontation with the witch and trying to stop the spell she has over the photographer should be a big deal, yet here this comes about without much of a point and goes by in such a blur that it’s hard to realize what happened until after it’s over. This is also where the realization hits that nothin deadly or dangerous has actually happened, with the majority of the interactions here not actually rendering any kind of damage on others following these situations makes sense, and it somewhat diminishes a lot of the impact that takes place here. As well, there’s also the general lack of violence and bloodshed here as a result of this, even with some of the deaths throughout here, which are enough to keep this one down.
Overview ***.5/5
An enjoyable enough, if somewhat flawed, genre effort, there’s a lot to like here, which is enough to keep this one going against a few minor issues that are present and keep this down. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre fare, who are curious about it, or who are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here, while most others might want to 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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