Popular reviews

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★½ 8

  Spooktober IV: Morte all'italiana

  Another attempt to capitalize on the success of "The Exorcist," albeit the makeup effects are stronger and the possessed woman's clapback is filthier and funnier than in BTD. Also, the manner in which our protagonist is possessed reminded me more of The Herectic than of the original - though the sequel wouldn't arrive for another three years.

  While the film usually manages to entertain - especially in the second half when s**t hits the fan - there are a few elements that the film tries for but doesn't push as much as it could. There are some surreal dream sequences that are reminiscent of Ken Russell's style (complete with trippy, blasphemous imagery), and a scene in…

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  Review by Slig001 ★★★★

  As Italian Exorcist rip offs go, The Antichrist is surely the best of them. This film takes obvious influence from William Friedkin's film, but it has a few other borrowed ideas too - namely tying it in with the resurrected witch trope that has been seen so many times before. The plot focuses on a man with a paralysed daughter. He employs a psychologist who hatches a plan to cure the daughter's problem via regressive hypnosis, to awaken in her the spirit of her ancestor (who could walk). Would could possibly go wrong?? The film is a real slow burn - the first third in particular - but once the story gets moving, it gets more interesting. Easily one of…

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  Review by Tony the Terror ★★★★½ 10

  I’d love to make a list of movies with goat analingus scenes in them, but I fear this would be the only one!

  By far my personal favorite Exorcist rip-off and probably the best Italian one as well. Everything about it is just so...Italian! Lots of incest and nudity and sexualizing everything, but it turns out this is actually a pretty good movie in general. You’ve got a stellar cast that includes Mel Ferrer and Alida Valli and a lead performance from Carla Gravina that goes that extra mile like she really goes through some shit in this movie that a lot of actresses would not have done.

  The effects are kind of amazing with some truly surreal moments. Some…

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  Review by Joshua Dysart ★★★★ 10

  What's the most Italian way to rip off The Exorcist?

  Replace the vulnerable child in Satan's grip with a hot, adult, sexually frustrated redhead in a Rosemary's Baby Mia Farrow pixy haircut; have her be obsessed with fucking her father long before the possession even starts; then have her writhe on a bed topless to Ken Russell-light imagery in a satanic garden fornication ritual.

  (That scene alone is worth the price of admission.)

  This is a whole lot of fun. Never once coming remotely within striking distance of the material it is clearly riding on the coattails of, it's still an incredible medley of super cheesy optical effects, witch trial exploitation, convoluted plotting, and hilarious pseudo psychology speak. The good…

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  Review by Gentry ★★★½ 4

  “Why doesn’t God make himself understood? The devil does, and clearly, too!”

  You have no idea how much I suffered to make Carla Gravina fly in that film.
  — Alberto De Martino

  I thought I heard bells ringing, but then I remembered I no longer knew what bells sounded like. Our female protagonist in Alberto De Martino’s demonsploitation flick is paralyzed, sexually repressed and looking for a miracle. An adequate build up to the exorcism, with Carla Gravina doing a lot in what I imagine is a difficult and thankless job (Martino says she accepted the role as “an acting challenge”).

  Say what you want about this being an Exorcist carbon copy, but it’s not. De Martino makes it his…

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  Review by Lexzilla ★★★★

  Everything you’d imagine an extremely 70s Italian take on The Exorcist to be: replaces the drab suburbia of Wahington DC with the baroque locations of Italy, replaces the average family home with a lush looking mansion, replaces local priests with brightly coloured religious pomp and replaces a young girl with a sexually frustrated adult.

  The make-over does give it a very different vibe, especially when you add in the included resurrected witch trope and, of course, the naked woodland sex ceremonies. And the frog murders. And the slightly uncomfortable possessiveness of the daughter for the father. And the pseudo-psychology babble.

  It’s a slow-burn, but once things start kicking off it ramps up nicely with the deviancy. And doesn’t feel like…

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  Review by kat🕷 ★★★½

  If it weren't for so many pointless, drawn-out scenes, this "Exorcist"-clone would be much better. It has well-stolen elements and a few nice original ideas. Fans of goat butts, satanic rituals, and headless toads will definitely enjoy this one.

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  Review by Cliff ★★★★ 3

  I love The Exorcist but I also love rip-offs of The Exorcist, and this is probably the best one, because it's got everything:

  - puking gunk
  - spinning head
  - growled obscenities
  - speaking in tongues
  - nymphomania
  - incest
  - levitation
  - hilariously bad special effects
  - flying wardrobes
  - chaotic and overwrought finalé
  - toad decapitation
  - goat rimming

  What more can you ask for?

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  Review by The Horror of Marna Larsen ★★★★★ 5

  Yes, this arrived in the mail today and I wanted to watch it and revisit the - as it turns out - much more enjoyable Beyond the Door and I forgot I have a terrible copy of The Devil's Daughter on youtube, so 666 week might be a little remiss in 80s satan horror. Anyway.

  It's as though a few cut scenes to speed things up are just too darn unrealistic - dare I say sacriligious? The movie makes a point of reprimanding the American audience that just doesn't know how these things are done! They don't send an exorcist for any little thing, it takes time! And take time it does. Lots and lots of unnecessary time where no…

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  Review by Bob McCully ★★★★ 4

  My 3rd Alberto De Martino flick is another ridiculous banger and quite possibly his strongest film, a supernatural slow-burn stomper that blatantly rips off The Exorcist in the most opulent Italo way!

  Ippolita is a young woman who is paralyzed from the waist down due to a traumatic event that happened to her when she was 12. Various medical procedures have been tried on her legs, but when a psychiatrist hypnotizes her as a possible solution it leads her to the psychic discovery of an evil ancestral witch. Psychedelic flashbacks turn into demonic possession as the film goes off the rails and deep into a menacing abyss. Watch out for the green puke!

  What a bizarre and sophisticated ride, a…

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  Review by Justin LaLiberty ★★★★ 2

  equally cheap and artful in its aping of The Exorcist (chunky green vomit being force fed to nebbish men, horny possession histrionics) but also creative in ways that many of Friedkin's imitators were not, like the optical effects featuring a disembodied hand floating in thin air before strangling a victim -- however you justify its existence, it's one of the better horror films of the 70s, obvious homage or not

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  Review by Adam Hursey ★★★★½ 6

  Sometimes I have to ask myself "How did I get here again?" when it comes to my film selection.

  In this case, it was Venn diagram overlap of Exorcist rip-offs (I recently watched Abby; I watched Beyond the Door and The Devil's Female AKA Magdalena, Possessed by the Devil not too terribly long ago), films by Alberto De Martino (I watched The Blancheville Monster and Formula for a Murder last month), and, my latest obsession since watching A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, wanting to see more of Anita Strindberg (although I'm not sure how much more of her we could see, even from a small sampling of films).

  Not only did I get an Italian rip-off of The Exorcist,…